If anybody is wondering how we have been affected by the rain in Palm Desert - it is the first real rain we have had here in our 5 years of visiting. We managed to work in 2 hours of tennis before it started to sprinkle. About 11AM the rain really started and it kept up for about 7 hours. Our eavestroughs overflowed (must be full of Bougainvillea or grapefruit). Here is a photo of the mountains covered in snow this morning.
We went out for dinner in the rain with a bunch of friends and neighbours. Murph's Gaslight for "family style" fried chicken - pails of beef barley soup followed by great platters of pan-fried chicken with bowls of mashed potatoes, kernel corn, black-eyed peas, and gravy, accompanied by platters of corn bread and dinner rolls, and finally finished with strawberry short cake. We could only eat about half of the chicken on the platters, so they came by and topped each platter up to full again, and then give everybody a doggie bag to take the chicken home. More than once I heard "it really is is good fried chicken". Cholesterol counts in the neighbourhood are off the scale this morning.