California 2018
For the third year in a row I spent more than a week in the Pacific Time Zone. This year's trip was to Palm Springs with a small side trip to Joshua Tree National Park and a day in San Diego at the end of the trip. We were visiting our family friend Mark, who as part of his retirement rents a house in Palm Springs for 3-4 months every winter and invites his friends down to swim in the pool and lie in the sun. My parents had gone for the last several years, and this year my sister, myself and M were also invited.
M and I drove to Columbus on Thursday 2/8 to drop off her dog with her parents. We got up the next morning and flew to San Diego. We met up with tigerlily_blue (her husband had a family issue and had to cancel) and drove to Palm Springs after a lunch at Carnitas Snack Shack on the water. We arrived in Palm Springs in time for dinner.
Mark had rented a lovely four bedroom house with a large pool and a hot tub. The pattern was largely set from Saturday onward. After a communal breakfast of bagels and whatever else we found, we'd swim, sun, snack and read (I read four books in four days) in the morning, possibly do something outside the house in the afternoon, then we'd head out to dinner.
On Sunday, tigerlily_blue, M, Dad and I varied the routine with a short two mile hike in Tahquitz Canyon up to the falls, which was nice. For dinner we all went to see The Judy Show, which paired an excellent dinner with a drag performer doing Judy Garland, Pearl Bailey and Betty Davis. This was far more enjoyable than it seems on the face of it. Next time I'd prefer not to sit in the front where Judy could diss us all (M, tigerlily_blue, Mom and I all got insulted), but it we got off easy compared to the people at the next table.
On Monday, all of us but Mark drove south. We stopped at the Salton Sea, which was accidentally created by an engineering mistake in 1905. Can you imagine what would happen if someone made a mistake that created a 8000+ square mile lake today? Alas, although the lake was pretty we didn't see many of the birds that use the lake as a migration stop. From there, we went further south to see Salvation Mountain, which is one of the largest and strangest art installations I have ever seen. If you're ever in that area, it's worth the detour to see it.
On Tuesday, my sister, M and I drove north for a two night stay outside Joshua Tree National Park. Before we made it there, they both insisted that we stop at Cabazon Dinosaurs, which was a very cheesy roadside attraction. The two iconic gigantic dinosaurs have sat there since 1964. They have also been joined by a large number of smaller dinosaurs, who give every appearance of having been acquired from museums that were going out of business. Scientific accuracy is somewhat minimal. Wikipedia says it is in fact a creationist museum, although I saw no real evidence of that. In any event, I don't need to do it again, but it was fun climbing inside a giant t-rex once.
Our lodging outside the park was intentionally as far from town as M could find so we could in theory see the stars that much better. Unfortunately, some mild clouds and an unexpectedly large amount of light pollution made the stars less clear than we'd hoped, but we still enjoyed watching them from the hot tub.
On Wednesday, we hit the park. This included relatively easy hikes at Split Rock, Barker Dam and Hidden Valley, and a moderate to strenuous hike near sunset up Ryan Mountain that gave us panoramic views of the entire park. We also did a number of "stop and look" sites, most notably Skull Rock and Keys View. M had 30K steps on her Fitbit, and we were all very ready for dinner by the end of the day. Thursday took us back into Joshua Tree for short walks to Arch Rock, the Cholla Cactus Garden and the Bajada nature trail; we were back in Palm Springs in time for us to hit a downtown street fair and get dinner.
On the whole, Joshua Tree is a very pleasant park in February. We had great hiking weather and a comparatively uncrowded park. The scenery doesn't have a standout "oh wow" moment but it has plenty of interesting terrain features (mostly rock faces) and the titular Joshua Trees are fun to look at. I'm sure it must be beastly hot in the summer, and given that the modest facilities were about half full in the middle of a school week it must get very crowded in the summer, but none of those things impacted us.
On Friday, M, my sister and I drove to San Diego and met my cousin Becky and her family at the San Diego Zoo. Due to the vagaries of a four-year-old, we didn't get to all of the zoo, but what we saw was more than enough to confirm its lofty reputation was well deserved. I strongly recommend it, although if you can only see one the Safari Park has a slight (and I do mean slight) edge. After dinner we dropped my sister off for the red-eye, then the rest of us watched the men's figure skating and went to bed. We were up early and flew back to Columbus without incident.
M and I drove to Columbus on Thursday 2/8 to drop off her dog with her parents. We got up the next morning and flew to San Diego. We met up with tigerlily_blue (her husband had a family issue and had to cancel) and drove to Palm Springs after a lunch at Carnitas Snack Shack on the water. We arrived in Palm Springs in time for dinner.
Mark had rented a lovely four bedroom house with a large pool and a hot tub. The pattern was largely set from Saturday onward. After a communal breakfast of bagels and whatever else we found, we'd swim, sun, snack and read (I read four books in four days) in the morning, possibly do something outside the house in the afternoon, then we'd head out to dinner.
On Sunday, tigerlily_blue, M, Dad and I varied the routine with a short two mile hike in Tahquitz Canyon up to the falls, which was nice. For dinner we all went to see The Judy Show, which paired an excellent dinner with a drag performer doing Judy Garland, Pearl Bailey and Betty Davis. This was far more enjoyable than it seems on the face of it. Next time I'd prefer not to sit in the front where Judy could diss us all (M, tigerlily_blue, Mom and I all got insulted), but it we got off easy compared to the people at the next table.
On Monday, all of us but Mark drove south. We stopped at the Salton Sea, which was accidentally created by an engineering mistake in 1905. Can you imagine what would happen if someone made a mistake that created a 8000+ square mile lake today? Alas, although the lake was pretty we didn't see many of the birds that use the lake as a migration stop. From there, we went further south to see Salvation Mountain, which is one of the largest and strangest art installations I have ever seen. If you're ever in that area, it's worth the detour to see it.
On Tuesday, my sister, M and I drove north for a two night stay outside Joshua Tree National Park. Before we made it there, they both insisted that we stop at Cabazon Dinosaurs, which was a very cheesy roadside attraction. The two iconic gigantic dinosaurs have sat there since 1964. They have also been joined by a large number of smaller dinosaurs, who give every appearance of having been acquired from museums that were going out of business. Scientific accuracy is somewhat minimal. Wikipedia says it is in fact a creationist museum, although I saw no real evidence of that. In any event, I don't need to do it again, but it was fun climbing inside a giant t-rex once.
Our lodging outside the park was intentionally as far from town as M could find so we could in theory see the stars that much better. Unfortunately, some mild clouds and an unexpectedly large amount of light pollution made the stars less clear than we'd hoped, but we still enjoyed watching them from the hot tub.
On Wednesday, we hit the park. This included relatively easy hikes at Split Rock, Barker Dam and Hidden Valley, and a moderate to strenuous hike near sunset up Ryan Mountain that gave us panoramic views of the entire park. We also did a number of "stop and look" sites, most notably Skull Rock and Keys View. M had 30K steps on her Fitbit, and we were all very ready for dinner by the end of the day. Thursday took us back into Joshua Tree for short walks to Arch Rock, the Cholla Cactus Garden and the Bajada nature trail; we were back in Palm Springs in time for us to hit a downtown street fair and get dinner.
On the whole, Joshua Tree is a very pleasant park in February. We had great hiking weather and a comparatively uncrowded park. The scenery doesn't have a standout "oh wow" moment but it has plenty of interesting terrain features (mostly rock faces) and the titular Joshua Trees are fun to look at. I'm sure it must be beastly hot in the summer, and given that the modest facilities were about half full in the middle of a school week it must get very crowded in the summer, but none of those things impacted us.
On Friday, M, my sister and I drove to San Diego and met my cousin Becky and her family at the San Diego Zoo. Due to the vagaries of a four-year-old, we didn't get to all of the zoo, but what we saw was more than enough to confirm its lofty reputation was well deserved. I strongly recommend it, although if you can only see one the Safari Park has a slight (and I do mean slight) edge. After dinner we dropped my sister off for the red-eye, then the rest of us watched the men's figure skating and went to bed. We were up early and flew back to Columbus without incident.