Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Our Trip to the Desert -- Part Two

After a leisure morning, trying unsuccessfully to find a special restaurant that would take a reservation in the evening on Valentine's Day, we decided to drive some 20 miles to Palm Springs to attend an art show, do some more hiking, then take our chances on finding some venue for the evening.

When we arrived, there were bicyclers everywhere, celebrating something or other.  We found the outdoor art show and walked around.  I found myself wanting to spend thousands of dollars, but that wasn't going to happen.  I did purchase a three-dimensional piece of art crafted from flowers, some teeny-tiny, and it now proudly hangs in one of our bathrooms.

Near the art show was a community theater, and that night a parody play was being performed.  We walked in and to our luck and delight we got the last two tickets for the 8:00 performance!  The play was called "I Saw What You Did Last Donna Summer," a spoof of the old teenage slasher movie combined with the music, when the song title fit into the plot, of disco diva Donna Summer.

With our evening squared away, we found a nice restaurant nearby where we had a lovely lunch (I maintained my gluten-free diet, thank you very much!), spent a little more time at the art show, then headed for the southwestern part of the Palm Springs area.  Off by itself from the somewhat glitzy town is an Indian reservation. Once there you can find hiking trails, this time with rocks and varying kinds of palm trees, not Joshua Trees.

The trail we decided to hike was literally along an expansive oasis of palm trees. If there had been time, and we hadn't started so late, we could have seen even more of this oasis which continues for some 13 miles!  As it was, it was just beautiful, not to mention cool, in the afternoon sun.  You always hear about oases in the desert, and you may imagine a few around a pool of water. This was one an oasis alright that followed the path of a stream, but this oasis goes on and on and on!

Here is my offering of pictures I took of this incredible oasis.  I hope you enjoy them!


Looking down on the first trees of this incredible palm oasis that goes on for miles

Coolness, thermally and esthetically

Usually fires or lightning strikes burn the "beards" of the palms, so I guess that hasn't happened here in a while

One of many, many groups of palms

Lovely and beautiful basking in the afternoon sun

There was ample shade on the trail

Did I mention there were a lot of palm trees? Some looked to have trimmed beards

Rocks from a rocky canyon just off of the trail in the afternoon sun

The farther up we hiked the more we saw massive amounts of dead palm fronds

Notice the blackened trunks; there was a fire in the area in 1980.  Most palms don't seem worse for the wear

From the rocky, side canyon--I love rocks!

See the little fella?

Palms amid the rocks of the side canyon

I'm always amazed how plants like this beauty take hold and thrive by rocks

Couldn't stop taking pictures of these majestic trees, perhaps because I'm just a fascinated Utah boy and always will be

Bob and Ann!

1 comment:

Jennifer said...

Bob and Ann, indeed! lol
Thank you for sharing. Lovely pictures. :)