Off to Palm Springs


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.

The end of summer? I hope not.

As I am writing this on Sunday 8/31/08 at 7:00 AM it is only 50 degrees. This is the last weekend before most kids go back to school and of course the weather is crap! Friday it was in the mid 80s but yesterday it only got in the high 60s. Summer is not over though as the temps are supposed to warm back up later in the week.

The other day I realized that my whole summer was spent mostly in the house with the knee brace on and hobbling around on crutches. I never went to the Oregon coast or even to the beach on the Columbia River at Sauvie Island.

My friend Denise wanted me to go to Isla Mujeres in September when she and another friend will be there. I had to decline that invite as I didn’t think I would be up to all of the walking required to get around on the island. I wanted to book a trip to Isla in late October when other friends will be there but originally I was banned by my daughter from the island during most of that timeframe because she and her husband were going to be there on their belated honeymoon. Tara and Kelly have since changed their plans since Mexicana will no longer be flying out of Portland and any other flight they could book was many hundreds of dollars more.
Before Tara changed their plans I booked to go to Palm Springs the end of October. I will be staying at Worldmark’s condos so there is no cost for my room. My airfare cost about $100 more than I have ever paid to fly into Palm Springs.I probably won’t even rent a car since there are tons of great restaurants within a mile or so of the condos. There is a grocery store right on the way from the airport so I can have the taxi driver stop and let me go into buy groceries. All I have to do is walk out the back door of the condo and I am at the pool. How great is that? I will get my sun fix and look like my usual tan self again.

Sunset on the Oregon coast

Sauvie Island on the Columbia River

Palm Springs, I love the palms against the blue sky