{Megan}
So as you may recall in yesterday’s post, our rules to this big road trip was to only experience new things. We broke the rule. Palm Springs will do that to us.
We slightly altered our itinerary once we realized we were a mere 45 minutes from Palm Springs (actually Palm Desert is better but we call the whole area Palm Springs). The thought of 10+ hours by a pool, with fruity cocktails was just too tempting to pass up. So we hopped in the car for the short drive and we were swimming in the Westin resort pool within 2 hours. Ahhhh….
As much as we love to lounge, we do eventually get bored. I had always heard about some elusive mountain tram and it sounded intriguing, so as we sat in our chaise by the pool we did some research and decided; “Let’s be crazy and do it!!”.
We had visions of it being pretty cheesy, an overpriced tourist trap that would leave us saying, “Well, there went that $100.” BUT… it was awesome! The Palm Springs Tram departs the valley floor every half hour, it costs about $25 per person and within a 10 minute zip up the cables, we were at 8,500 feet in a terrain that looked just like our beloved Tahoe and there was still snow!
We did all of the dorky touristy photos and then parked ourselves at the vista restaurant and enjoyed a glass of Chateau St. Jean cab and some appetizers while looking out at the view. It was really spectacular and once again I was left with the feeling that I did not want to leave and was planning my return before we got back down to the bottom. (Note: this will be a theme throughout.) I wore my strappy heels and white pants but you can backpack up there and camp, which looked amazing!
Day two of Palm Springs was more of the same. I spent a whopping 6 consecutive hours by the pool; flipping through magazines and flipping sides to get an even bronze. Since this was our first sun since winter, we overcompensated with an abundance of SPF30, which I have sadly learned blocked nearly every ray from my body. So despite all of the hours, I barely had any color. This tan was going to be my Palm Springs souvenir and I got ripped off. Oh well.
And since we had already broken our rule of “only new sites vacation” we decided to return to one of my favorite streets in Palm Desert; which just happens to have a Tommy Bahama restaurant tucked up above shops like Anthropologie, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and so much more. We got cozy in the patio lounge and soaked up every bit of happy hour that we could!
In our still 90 degree sun-soaked and cocktail happiness we headed back to our resort and just at that moment of sheer bliss, my check engine light came on. Wah, wah. Mike was able to make a miraculous last minute service appointment for the next morning, the morning we were to drive to the Grand Canyon. We sat ever-so-bored from 7:30-10:30am, but they fixed the problem and we were back in business! Grand Canyon here we come!!
Images taken by us, just for you.
