I am off to Palm Springs where it will be about 35 degrees warmer than it was in Portland today. I can’t wait for some warm sunshine while lying by the pool reading.
Palm Springs is such a great place to people watch. In fact it was in PS that I first saw a dog in diapers being pushed in a baby stroller. So you can only imagine the dog’s owner. As I recall she was dripping in jewelry and had obviously had a face lift. One visit to PS my daughter commented on the number of plastic surgeons advertising in the Palm Springs visitor’s book in our hotel room. Plastic surgery is a big reason why a lot of people visit PS. There are some really great restaurants right on Palm Canyon Road about a mile from where I will be staying. In the evenings after dinner it is always interesting to go into the art galleries and many shops of every sort. I haven’t been to PS in about 5 years so I am sure there will be some new places to check out.
My first of many trips to PS was back in 1996. My sister and I stayed at a friend of mine’s condo in Palm Desert over my birthday weekend 9/7. Val told me all I had to pay her was for the electric bill that month. My sister is a real cheapskate. Every time I turned the AC colder she would walk by and turn it up. We stayed at the condo for 4 days and I think that the electric bill turned out to be something like $20. By 11:00 AM it was too hot to even go to the pool. Most days it was over 110 degrees. Oh, yes sure it is a dry heat. WTF? It was still over 100 degrees. We spent a lot of time driving in the car with AC on. One afternoon we drove to Joshua Tree National Park and stayed to view a fabulous sunset. Three times I have taken the tram to Mount San Jacinto State Park. The first time was with my sister. The second time was the first time I took Tara to PS in January 1997 with me. The next month Tara suffered her first cardiac arrest and because she had been in a coma and had lost her short term memory she did not remember even going to PS. When I took Tara to PS 9 months later she had absolutely no memory of the previous trip. So when we took the tram up the mountain it was like her first time to experience the trip.
I think that I must have made at least 12 trips to PS between 1996 and my last visit in 2003. PS used to be a real cheap flight from Portland via Alaska Airlines. This trip I paid more than about $150 more for my airfare than ever before even flying into PS rather than Ontario. Oh well, the condo is a timeshare so basically it is free. The car rental using a corporate discount is very reasonable.
Filed under: Travel, vacations | Tagged: palm springs, shopping |
Jackieinpdx's Blog 
Have a great time! Can’t wait to see pictures!
It must have been a somewhat weird experience for you. Knowing that Tara had been there before yet experiencing it all a new again.
Wayne,
That whole period with Tara was weird. She has no memory from Thanksgiving to Feb. 16th when she had the cardiac arrest. The next 6 months or so while she was recovering are lost to her also. We walked down Palm Canyon Drive and she asked if she had bought something at a clothes store. I thought she remembered but she said it looked like a store she would go in.