California: Palm Springs in the Fall

One doesn't expect water in the desert (though the springs for which Palm Springs is named do exist),
and one doesn't expect deciduous trees. We saw this one in Andreas Canyon, one of the Indian Canyons,

  Looking for an easy getaway to celebrate a wedding anniversary, Jane and I headed northeast from our home in San Diego to the oasis town of Palm Springs for two nights in early December 2019.  This was our third time in PS, the first being in 2007 to look at Mid-Century Modern architecture prior to designing and building a home in Maryland. After enjoying that house for almost 10 years, we were back in Palm Springs for a second visit, a one-night stopover during our 2017 move from Maryland to San Diego.
    All three times we have stayed at the same place, the Orbit In, a shrine to Mid-Century Modernism that also happens to be affordable and in a great location for walking. This time we got the room, the Frey Lounge, that we stayed in on our first visit.
    Palm Springs seems forever associated with the Rat Pack era. Our Orbit In room was stocked with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. LPs and turntable for playing them.  In the adjacent town of Cathedral City, you can cruise on Bob Hope Drive, which intersects with Frank Sinatra Drive, Gerald Ford Drive (he spent his retirement years here), and Dinah Shore Drive. In celebrity-smitten Palm Springs, stars dedicated to people both extremely well known and extremely not-so-well known, are embedded in sidewalks.
    On this trip we returned to a restaurant we had liked during our 2017 stopover, Rooster and the Pig, a small Vietnamese-American place where we had fried mushroom clusters and shared a fish. A no-reservations policy means there's often a very long wait for a table. Fortunately, a table for two opened up quickly for us, allowing us to bypass larger parties who had much longer waits. This time we met the owner, the son of a New York father and a Vietnamese mother.  Our second dinner was at Shanghai Red's, a casual dining joint attached to the Fisherman's Market, where we had lunch just after getting to town. Simple grilled fish was good here, as were steamed clams, but I would not again order anything fried.
    Although we drove through heavy rain getting to Palm Springs, it was dry enough we when got there that we could walk out for meals and to browse the shops on Palm Canyon Drive. It was sunny the next morning and we could enjoy the hotel's pool, which was heated to 85 degrees. Then we drove south of downtown to explore Indian Canyons. The previous day's rain meant the canyon's creeks and waterfalls were flowing briskly.
     Here are some snapshots:

Mid-Century Modernism is often associated
with the early years of the Space Race.

Palm Springs is infamous for its intolerably hot summers, but the other seasons can be
quite chilly. We were happy that the Frey Lounge has a gas fireplace. It's other unique
feature is that the only place to shower is outdoors. (I was tempted to tell them that
a mild bleach solution would probably remove the soot from the fireplace.)

Our room came with all the essentials for the good life.

Our room's outdoor shower was just a few
steps outside and was completely private. 

The pool at the Orbit In, a nine-room hotel. Palm Springs discourages multi-story buildings,
meaning that with a hedge or a fence, you're guaranteed a degree of privacy. 

Palm Canyon Drive is the main shopping street. 

A lot of the stores seemed to target recreational shoppers
and impulse buyers.

Sidewalk stars honor celebrities
 whom I assume had some
association with the town. Many of the
names were people I had not heard of.

Several blocks of Palm Canyon Drive become a large outdoor market on Thursday evenings.

This is Lulu's on Palm Canyon Drive. We had a quick lunch
here before driving home to San Diego. My excellent burger
and fries cost less than the same items at the fast-food Burger
Lounge in San Diego.

The San Andreas Fault runs near here, but I think that's just a coincidence.

I slowed down quite a bit on this portion of the
road in Indian Canyons,

Trees and rocks keep parts of the Andreas Canyon Trail shady.

The day after a heavy rain, this waterfall had a strong flow.

Trails wend around and seemingly through large boulders.

The dead fronds reminded me of the skirt on Degas's "Little Ballerina" bronze.

What happened to the car that was parked
to the left of this one? 

Towering rocks are complemented by towering palm trees.

One of several mountainside houses visible from Indian Canyons. I'm not
sure whether they're on tribal land. 

Palm trees line a stream at the bottom of a canyon. 

U.S.A. Road Trip: From the Chesapeake Bay to San Diego Bay in Eight Days

      Jane and I had several big things on our minds in the summer of 2017.  One was the impending birth of a grandchild; one was waiting for our house on Tilghman Island, Maryland, to sell; and another was an ambitious autumn road trip that would take us, among other places, to Milwaukee, Glacier National Park, Seattle, San Diego and Denver. Then events took over.

We relied on our phones' GPS apps
to get from place to place, but the
map was a big help in chosing
the overall route.

      First to happen was our granddaughter's birth in San Diego on July 13. Then we accepted an offer for our house. Moving quickly, we flew to San Diego, met the newborn, and arranged to rent an apartment three blocks from the waterfront. We returned to Tilghman and started getting ready for the move. Our furniture and other belongings were  loaded onto a United Van Lines truck on September 18 and within a couple of hours we were on the road, racing to get to San Diego before the truck. Plans for the original road trip were scrapped -- our furniture would be delivered on Sept. 27 -- but we still wanted at least a night in Milwaukee to see son Kyle and his wife, Meg. And we wanted to go through Denver to see nephew David and his wife, Beth.  And between Tilghman and Milwaukee, we figured we could stop in Columbus, Ohio, to see friends from New York who now masquerade as Buckeyes.
     Some of the driving days were longer than others, and in some places we seemed to be almost the only vehicle that was not a Kenworth, a Freightliner or a Peterbilt. It's amazing how close these behemoths get when they're tailgating or cutting in front of a relatively small car like our Chevy Equinox. We drove thousands of miles, almost all of it on mind-numbing Interstate highways. Here's how the trip worked out.
     We left Tilghman at mid-afternoon on Sept. 18 and were pleased that we made it well into Pennsylvania for our first night on the road. Jane was online in the car looking for places to stay and eat in Breezewood, which is basically a truck-stop town of fast-food outlets. We opted to continue west to Somerset where we stayed at a Holiday Inn Express and escaped fast-food by dining at the rustic Pine Grill.
     The drive to Columbus turned out to be one of our shortest driving days, which was fortunate because we had a document to print out, have notorized and sent overnight for the closing on our house, which was happening back in Maryland the next day. Easily done at a UPS store. At our friends' suggestion, we stayed at the downtown Hotel Leveque and met them for dinner a short walk away at the Guild House on High Street. I went to graduate school at Ohio State but we didn't go up High Street far enough to see the campus or what's become of the neighborhood where I lived in the 1970s.
     From Columbus, it was another fairly easy drive to Milwaukee. We stayed at a downtown Hilton Garden Inn, where we had stayed on a previous trip, and dined at Pizza Man, a large and busy pizzeria near my son's apartment. I'm always impressed with what a pleasant city Milwaukee is, or maybe it's that Kyle and Meg have excellent taste in choosing their neighborhoods. On our original itinerary, the next stop would have been to visit a friend in Minneapolis, but we had to head southwest, not northwest.

Interstate 80 in Nebraska shows the need for self-driving cars. Human
drivers are likely to find the drive a bit boring. 

   On Thursday, September 27, we made it from Milwaukee to Lincoln, Nebraska, passing through the heart of flyover country. Lincoln, both a state capital and a university town, has loads of cool-looking restaurants and bars. We stayed at a downtown Hyatt Place and had a lovely dinner a few blocks away at Dish.  Temperatures there were in the 90s, unseasonably hot even in the early evening.
     From Lincoln, we drove to Denver, having to forego a visit with friends in Fort Collins, Colorado, due to the press of time.  We stayed at a downtown Hyatt; had drinks at Ophelia's, a kitschy bar next to a marijuana store; and had Friday night dinner with our nephew and his wife at Solitaire, a restaurant near their home in a close-in neighborhood of nearly century-old arts-and-crafts homes.
 

This 1938 Ford Woodie belonged to another guest at the La Quinta
in Kingman, Arizona. He said it was all original -- or at least the
wood was.  He said he had installed a Chevy engine, Chevy transmission, air
conditioning and power steering. Oh, and the orange rims were not
original, either. Still, a cool vehicle for traveling Route 66.

  Next stop, on Saturday, was Santa Fe, New Mexico, where we stayed at the Inn on the Alameda, a few blocks from the square. We had drinks at the lively Coyote Cafe and then a totally unremarkable dinner at La Fonda. Without reservations on a Saturday night, we couldn't get into the places we would have preferred.
     On Sunday, we made it to  Kingman, Arizona, one of the gateway towns to the Grand Canyon's southern rim and a popular stop for people tracing U.S. Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles. We met one such couple who were keeping track of licence plates. Ours was only the second Maryland car they had spotted. We stayed at a perfectly pleasant La Quinta and had honest-to-Shiva Indian food at India Spice.

The pool and bar at the Orbit In in Palm Springs.

  Monday found us arriving in Palm Springs, California, where we stayed for a second time  at the Orbit In, a recycled and restored Mid-Century Modern motel. Drinks were nearby at the iconic Spencers and dinner was at Rooster and the Pig, a packed Vietnamese eatery in a nearby storefront. We were last in Palm Springs a decade ago and found it little changed despite the reported influx of "new Hollywood" weekenders.
    The next day, Tuesday, Sept. 26, we arrived in San Diego via winding and extremely scenic state roads and spent the night at our new granddaughter's house. The next day we arrived at our Little Italy building to find that the truck driver who loaded us in Maryland had been waiting at the curb since 6:30 a.m.  "I wanted to get a spot," he said, referring to his 80-foot-long tractor-trailer rig.
    For the present, we've found our spot, too, though our travels will continue. The San Diego airport is literally within walking distance.

Halfway through moving-in day. The dining table legs awaited the top. Eventually boxes were stacked six feet high.