A Week in Palm Springs - Part 2

Our hotel was walking distance from several good restaurants, including Sherman's Deli, Johannes, and Alicante.

Sherman's has a great bakery, with really good chocolate rugulach. We had schnitzel one evening at Johannes, followed by a desert sampler.  Both were quite good.  Alicante is a Mediterranean restaurant, with heavy Spanish influence.  We had great tapas, including grilled octopus, grilled artichoke heart with an egg and asparagus, and a particularly good tiramisu.  We liked Alicante so much we went there twice.

On Thursday we drove up to Desert Hot Springs to tour the Cabot's Pueblo Museum.  The story of this place is quite interesting, but also rather intricate.  Here is a link to the Cabot's Museum website if you want to learn more.  The place is over 5,000 square feet, 35 rooms, with 150 windows and 65 doors. It was built almost entirely by one man, Cabot Yerxa, over the years between 1941 and 1965.  Photography is not allowed inside during the tour, so here are a few images from the outside.

The inspiration for the building style is the Hopi pueblos of the type found in northeastern Arizona.  

Mr. Yerxa had an elaborate weather station at his pueblo.

Palm Springs is all about Mid-Century Modern.  I didn't spend much time this trip photographing the architecture, but I did get a couple shots of some interesting furniture at the Hilton.

Click here to see more pictures from our week in Palm Springs, California in early December.
     

A Week in Palm Springs - Part 1

We spent a week in Palm Springs, California earlier this month.  We got there just in time for a week of temperatures that were about 10 degrees below normal, which meant daytime highs in the 60's instead of the 70's.  The weather was pretty nice though, and we got in some hikes in the desert canyons that would not have been as much fun had it been warmer.  

We drove out on Monday afternoon, stopping at a few scenic spots along the way.  Instead of taking the freeway to get there, we drove over the mountains from San Diego, passing through Santa Ysabel, Warner Springs, Oak Grove, Aguanga, Anza, and down the Palms to Pines Highway.

Partway between Warner Springs and Oak Grove we spotted a vineyard that looked pretty good in the later afternoon sun.

Further on we stopped a scenic overlook in the National Forest at the top of the Palms to Pines Highway.

We made sure not to get too close to the cholla cactus.

At the bottom of the highway there is a sign warning about bighorn sheep.  We didn't see any.

We stayed at the Palm Springs Hilton, which is perfectly located just a couple of blocks from the main shopping and dining areas on Palm Canyon Drive.

On Tuesday we started our day with a hike around Andreas Canyon, which I'll put in a separate post.  After lunch we stopped in to the Palm Springs Art Museum.  We've been there before, and we always enjoy it.  It's mostly modern art of some form or another, but sometimes they have special exhibits with older stuff too.  The white dog greets you when you first get in.

It's fun to watch people's expressions the first time they come upon this old couple who are sitting at the top of the stairs.

After the Art Museum we decided to head for something completely different, and rode the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway up to the Mountain Station at 8,516'.  The tram covers the roughly 6,000' elevation gain from the lower station, over about 2.5 miles of cable, in about 10 minutes.  It's generally about 40 degrees cooler up there compared to down in Palm Springs, which sits at about 479' above sea level.

That is I-10 and the various cities of the Coachella Valley down in the distance.

There are about 50 miles of hiking trails in the Mt. San Jacinto State Park and Wilderness Area.  

We didn't stay outside too long, it was pretty cold and windy, but it was certainly a change from the dry desert below.

On our way back down the hill to Palm Springs I stopped to get a picture of one of the original tram cars.  

These were in service until 2000, when they were replaced by the new 18' diameter cars, which are the largest in the world, and the only one of its kind in the Western Hemisphere.  The floor rotates twice on the way up or down.  This was the first time I've been on the newer cars.  The old ones were much smaller, but I did like that you could fully open the windows on the ends of the old cars to lean out and take a picture without getting any glare from the glass.

If you look closely, directly above the center of the doorway, you can just see the lights of the Mountain Station in the background of this last picture.

More from our week in Palm Springs in the next post.  
     

Snow Leopards - San Diego Zoo

Here are a couple pictures of the Snow Leopards at the San Diego Zoo, from the weekend of December 17-18, 2016.

     

Malayan Tigers - San Diego Zoo

Here are a few pictures of the Malayan Tigers at the San Diego Zoo from the weekend of December 17-18, 2016.  These are Cinta and Berani, the soon-to-be-three-years-old brothers.

       

Fishing Cat - San Diego Zoo

Even though they are not as big as the tigers or the leopards, the Fishing Cats are still one of my favorites. 

    

Amur Leopards - San Diego Zoo

Here are some pictures of the Amur Leopards at the San Diego Zoo from the weekend of December 17-18, 2016.

Click here to see a few more images of the Amur Leopards, the Snow Leopards and the Malayan Tigers at the San Diego Zoo from the weekend of December 17-18, 2016.
     

Joshua Tree National Park and Wonder Valley (near Twentynine Palms)

We recently spent a week in Palm Springs, California, and while we were there we took a day trip up to the area around Twentynine Palms and Joshua Tree National Park.  

Back in the 1940's and 50's there were a number of 5-acre parcels in the desert sold by the Federal government under a small tract homestead program.  The program required that the homesteader put up a minimum improvement, which was generally in the form of a small one-room cabin.  The one my father had, a ways outside of Desert Hot Springs, was "improved" with a 14x20 one-room cabin, but it did have a two-seater outhouse.  We drove around the area east of Twentynine Palms known as Wonder Valley, looking at what is left of many of these little homesteads.  It will probably come as no surprise that many of the initial homesteaders didn't stay long.  There is not much out there, and the harsh climate doesn't help any.  We did come across the remnants of some sort of old mining facility just south of Highway 62.

On the north side of Hwy 62 we drove around Dale Dry Lake on Ironage Road, and admired the views of pretty much nothing.  This is the view looking more or less north.

Not much different looking south either.  Those hills in the distance are the Old Dale Mining District which is to the east of Joshua Tree National Park.

Later we took a little drive around part of Joshua Tree National Park.

We drove out to Keyes View to check out the view to the south.  That tallest mountain in the distance is Mt. San Jacinto, which rises pretty much straight up over 10,880 feet above Palm Springs.

It seemed like a good spot for a selfie.

Click here to see a few more images from Wonder Valley and from Joshua Tree National Park in early December 2016.