Palm Springs '16 - A Short Escape from Winter and Cares

Friday night, ten p.m., a dozen hours before our flight to Palm Springs.  I receive a frantic email from our Air BandB host in Palm Springs suggesting an immediate phone conversation.  He has flown from New York to check on his recently renovated mid-century condo only to find that the renovation is not only incomplete but the condo is uninhabitable.  He is distressed.  So sorry!  What can he do to help us find a place to stay?  Before the phone call is ended, Carol is at my side with her laptop with three new rental possibilities.  We decide on the one with great location and a private spa steps from the front door.

(A reminder: a single click on any photo enlarges it to full page.  

A single click outside the photo returns it to regular size.) 

The condo we thought we had rented - not quite move-in ready.

Our only problem is that we don’t know if our application will be accepted in time.  I add an email to our application, letting our new host understand our urgency.  We go to bed.  In the morning we have a sympathetic reply with an acceptance of our application.  By mid-afternoon on Saturday, we’ve met our forlorn would-be host, Donald, and seen the condo we didn’t get to rent.  It was, indeed, a mess - plastic sheeting, dust everywhere, sheetrock waiting to be installed, furniture covered with protective plastic and a toilet sitting in the middle of the bathroom floor.  We commiserate with Donald and offer encouragement.  Carol and I leave to join our friends, Jerry and Clare, and are soon sipping wine and suiting up to slip into our private spa jacuzzi.  All’s well that ends well.

Sunday morning, we’re off to our first movie at the International Film Festival.  "Atomic Falafel" is a zany Israeli comedy with an anti-war theme.  After the movie, we are treated to an interview with one of the stars, who has just flown in from Tel Aviv.  In the afternoon, we take in the small but stunning Palm Springs Museum of Art satellite museum in Palm Desert.  Carol and I then catch the exhibit at the Architecture and Design Museum in Palm Springs minutes before the show closes.  Clare fixes the first of her excellent dinners.  Wine flows.  All’s well that ends well on our first full day.

A star of the Israeli film, "Atomic Falafel," speaks after the showing.

Palm Springs Art Museum satellite museum in Palm Desert

A Pause for Reflection in the Sculpture Garden

Monday, Carol and I are off to Joshua Tree National Park, while Jerry and Clare remain in town to hike in Murray Canyon to Seven Sisters Falls, where they sketch and do water colors.  We hike to the Lost Horse Mine.  We optimistically take the longer loop - six miles that offer solitude, a wild and stunning landscape and perhaps a little more of a workout than we were prepared for.  Another excellent meal from Clare followed by time in the hot tub.  Day #2 begins well and ends well.

Joshua Tree

The Trail to Lost Horse Mine

Small Beauty, Joshua Tree National Park

Nearing Lost Horse Mine

Tuesday, we are scheduled to take a ranger-led hike of Tahquitz Canyon.  A forecast of rain leads to a cancellation.  But we have options.  Caroline Banks’s cousin, Christine Reily, has given us lots of hiking suggestions and we head off for the South Lykken north trail (not to be confused with the South Lykken south trail, the North Lykken south trail or the North Lykken north trail - really).  We lose the trail within ten minutes.  Fortunately, an ascent of several thousand feet on our left and the entire city of Palm Springs lying below us to our right ensure that we are not in mortal danger of getting lost.  We get a short hike in, as the rain increases in intensity.  It pours all day and into the night, a happy surprise for the locals.

Carol and I tour Elvis’s honeymoon house, which he leased for one year and shared with his new bride, Priscilla Presley.  (Jerry and Clare demurred on the tour.  Go figure.)  A very cool piece of mid-twentieth century architecture that is for sale right now for seven million, reduced from ten; make them an offer.  The tour guides point out that for that bargain price the future owners will get regular tour bus drive-by’s, as well as people roaming the property and ringing the front door bell.  We will wait until the price dips below five million before giving any serious thoughts.  A built-in sixty-four foot curved sofa is awfully tempting, though.  We imagine all of our guests at our summer solstice party seated on the sofa with their champagne flutes for the annual photo.

Elvis slept here.

In the evening, we meet Dick and Darlene Carroll for dinner at Sammy G’s Tuscan Grille.  They are in town with Road Scholars for the Film Festival.  A pretty good dinner and a great time with friends.  A man enters the dining room shortly after we’ve ordered our drinks.  He wears a white sport coat (minus the pink carnation) over a black open-collar shirt and a white fedora.  The mafia?  Here in Palm Springs?  No.  It is the lounge singer, whose voice is so perfect that we debate all evening whether he is lip-synching to a good sound system.  As we rise to depart, he stops mid-song to say good-bye and unknowingly disprove our lip-synching theory.

Wednesday morning, we are delighted to awaken to blue skies.  High above in the San Jacinto Mountains, yesterday’s storm has left several inches of new snow to brighten the peaks.

We walk to Cheeky’s to meet Christine for breakfast.  It is quite a hot spot, with a line waiting for a table all morning.  Christine knows the drill, and we’re one of the first parties to be seated.  Fabulous breakfast!

They line up early for a gourmet breakfast at Cheeky's.

Mobile Sculpture, Palm Springs

Christine asks if we were awake for the earthquake this morning.  Earthquake?  Yes!  I was!  I lay in bed, eyes on the ceiling, pondering the coming day, when it felt as if someone bumped into our bed and made a brief racket.  It lasted all of a second and a half.  It was so weird that I immediately wondered if I had drifted off to sleep and dreamed it.  A north woods camper, all I could think was there was a critter in our room.  I even looked around a bit.  Earthquake was not even on my radar.  Jerry announced that it registered 4.5 on the Richter Scale.  Check that off my lifetime list of experiences.   

Jerry and Clare spend the day sketching and painting.  Carol and I hike Murray Canyon to Seven Sisters Falls, a good four-mile hike.  Yesterday’s heavy rain makes the many stream crossings interesting and challenging.  We pass several people on the way, and a group of six departs from the falls as we settle on a flat rock for lunch.  We dine in private, and have the trail to ourselves on our return. We finish as the next rain shower commences.  We try the hot tub in the rain - not bad at all.

Seven Sisters Falls, Murray Canyon

The four of us take in our second movie, "Body," a strange Polish character study that leaves me squirming to leave after twenty minutes.  The other three are surprised that I don’t like it, although they don’t rank it all that high on their scorecards.

Thursday morning, we finally take our ranger-led hike into Tahquitz Canyon, a starkly beautiful place dotted with colorful sycamores.  The waterfall at the end of the trail is even more dramatic than Seven Sisters.  It is a mystical place where centuries ago shamans of the Cahuilla people came to renew their strength.

Tahquitz Canyon, ancient retreat of tribal shamans.

Detail, Taquitz Canyon

Jerry, Clare, Me, Carol in Taquitz Canyon

 In late afternoon we visit Christine at her place in Mission Canyon.  We get to see her lovely pottery and exceptional photography.  Then it’s off to the Palm Springs Art Museum.  Jerry and Clare take in the street fair (“a lot of painted rocks for sale”) while Carol and I take in the first floor of the museum before running out of gas after a long day.

Friday morning, Carol and I are off early to get in a hike at Coachella Valley before a one o’clock movie.  We have planned on a challenging hike at Pushwalla Canyon, but Sue, the host at the visitor center, encourages us to take the stroll to McCallum Oasis and then continue into Moon Canyon, with a side trip up Herman’s Hike.  Great choice!  Moon Canyon is aptly named, and Herman’s Hike a quick climb to views of snow-capped mountains.

McCallum Oasis

Oasis path, after a rare downpour.

High above Moon Canyon on Herman's Hike

Above Moon Canyon, Mt. San Jacinto beyond.

Jerry and Clare arrive at Coachella an hour later.  Sue convinces them to take the same hike, but we never cross paths.  I believe they were painting in the oasis when we passed it by on our return.

Then it is back to the Mary Pickford Theater to see our last movie, "A Grain of Truth," a Polish crime thriller and the best of the three films we have seen.

Clare fixes a fine salmon and roasted vegetables dinner for our last night.  We finish our week’s cache of wine, one bottle at the hot tub, one at the dinner table.  Saturday morning, it all comes to an end.  The four of us take a long walk through residential streets on the north side of town to stretch our legs good before heading for the airport.  Frigid weather awaits us in Minneapolis.