Good afternoon.
Our trip continued toward Palm Springs, with a stop in Kelso. Now, pretty much all that's here is an old depot station. When it was built back in 1924, it served as a conductor’s room, telegraph office, baggage room, dormitory rooms for staff, boarding rooms for railroad crewmen, a restaurant, a billiard room, library and locker room. The railroad built it because of a 2% grade going north. Trains going from LA to Salt Lake needed 'helper' engines to climb the grade, and those engines were based here in Kelso. And they needed a place for the crews to live that drove the engines and maintained them. After  stronger diesel engines came along, they no longer needed Kelso, and slowly the town disappeared.  The Union Pacific decided in 1985 to raze the building because of safety issues, and residents and others across the region managed to save it.

It's still pretty much inside like it was when it was built. But weird having such a large building way out in the middle of the desert.
From there we made it to Palm Springs, and our hotel, which was right on the edge of downtown.
We had been here nearly 20 years ago, and forgot what a quaint lively town it was.
Ate some good and unusual food, such as baby Octopus....
And sliders made with crumbled bacon, beef and chorizo sausage.....
On our seconda day at this restaurant, we also got to enjoy a parade.

We thought it might be a leap year parade since it was on Saturday the 29th, but heard it was for Black History Month.
And I took a pic of this car in the parade, because Craig liked the wheels.  :-/
I got these pics backwards, but also on the way to Plam Springs, just outside of Kelso is the Kelso Dunes.


Weird seeing mountains of sand sitting out in the middle of the desert. But looked pretty cool.
So a great time was had. The weather was sunny and low 80's. We got there safe, and returned home safe. Did a little shopping, and a lot of eating. ....It was a good trip.