Palm Springs

We finally escaped the clutches of LA and motored out to the beautiful Palm Springs, wedged between two mountain ranges. We arrived about lunchtime and thought we’d pop into downtown which is about a mile south from our motel. After 5 minutes, a bus pulled up which we though was handy, so we hopped on. We were starting to regret climbing aboard as the driver appeared to be disinterested in continuing the journey. The prospect of progress looked bleak when he pulled out a novel and settled back in his chair. Eventually we did move on. A huge lady asked us where we were from. “Aw England. That’s where the food is expensive and the portions are small”. That’s us in a nutshell really.

It’s hot, hot, hot here with the mercury approaching 90F. Naturally, this requires frequent refreshment. We found a very cooling Mexican place serving wonderful Margueritas so we settled in there for a few hours. The restaurants here have water pipes spraying a fine mist onto the diners outside to keep everyone cool, very impressive considering we’re in the desert.

Next day we met up with Chris and Joan who took us to a very good restaurant overlooking a recently built golf course near where they live in Cathedral City. There really are a lot of golf courses here. Despite the desert climate there apparently is an abundance of water from underground aquifers that are constantly being replenished from run off from the mountains. I managed a few holes with some clubs borrowed from Chris which was a bit of a challenge in the heat (99 degrees) and the clubs hadn’t seen the light of day for 30 years so were not quite state of the art. I hooked up with a few local gents, one of whom popped into his house next to the eighth green and reappeared with a few refreshments – fabulous.

On our final day we took the sky tram (cable car to you and me) up to the top of the Chino Canyon and found ourselves in another world. The lift ascends 800 feet and we were suddenly in a forest of pine trees with snow on the ground. The temperature here is typically 30 to 40 degrees cooler than the desert floor, but on our visit we were still able to walk around comfortably in T shirts. There are several well marked walking trails. We followed one called desert view which gave up some tremendous views of the desert valley below.

All in all we were very impressed with Palm Springs and wished we had a few more days but we were booked into Death Valley so it was adios amigos and slap on that sun cream.