Palm Springs — Joe's Slideshow Archive

Page 7 of 7
Palm Springs, California

See the stone set in your eyes, see the thorn twist in your side

Despite horrifying fires near Los Angeles and almost equally horrifying near record high temperatures in the low deserts, I still happily went on a work related trip to Palm Springs, California, a quick memorable trip into a wilderness unlike any other. Part of that surely had to do with the temperature. Starting with overnight lows in the high 80s, it was easily at 100 degrees by mid morning when I was surveying existing roof conditions for the project which brought me there. By early afternoon the forecast high in the shade was 118 degrees, although my rental car thought it was a more realistic 122 degrees. By 10pm at night it had cooled down (if cooled down is the right phrase) to a mere 100 degrees. The heat was a palpable presence and a dangerous situation to be sure, it was hard to do much of anything in the valley without feelings its effects, getting another quick and pounding headache and downing another quick water to survive.

North of Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley, past the mountain ridge, high on a desert plain (where the streets have no name) sits Joshua Tree National Park, a big, empty, unpopular though spectacular place a good twenty degrees cooler than the hellish conditions below. The climate is perfect for the growth and prosperity of the elsewhere rare Joshua Tree, seen here in an unexpected forest stretching out as far as you can see. More than just the name of a beloved U2 album, Joshua Tree (National Park) is also an often spectacular high desert landscape with views across Coachella and all the way to Mexico (although distant smoke from the growing Los Angeles fires were making some long distance views unusually hazy). It is also a place where well traveled roads take visitors in air conditioned cars by or at least near all of the good views, with spectacular rewards for anyone who dares to actually step outside their vehicle and into creation. After the car (and U2 album) is turned off and once you enter the heat and the wild, you soon experience one of the quietest places you have ever been. No noise from cars or people or animals or wind, just you, the desert, the heat, thousands and thousands of Joshua Trees and (if you're lucky) a camera.

Palm Springs is well known not just for its blistering and suffocating heat but also for its Mid Century Modern architecture. Scattered about the town and desert are landmarks, although most of them are private homes and unavailable to legally visit. Still there are guidebooks and internet historic preservation sites which lead you on driving tours of the back streets to see what you can from public areas. And despite the creepy stalker feeling, I managed a quick drive by a few, although such visits rarely feel like you're seeing anything to be honest. Still I guess a quick view (and photo) of the street side of Richard Neutra's Kaufmann House beats no view at all.

As the road climbs to the tramway station, signs warn you that you are driving an especially steep grade and you need to turn off your air conditioning. Of course in 122 degree weather I'm not going to do that. A few miles later and a few thousand feet higher, as you pass overheated disabled cars and you watch your radiator gauge climbing dangerously into warning zones, you start to think that maybe turning off the air conditioning isn't that bad of an idea after all. I mean the car is already pretty cool, how long would it take to heat back up again (the answer is about 15 seconds). And no matter what you do, don't open the window (like me) and think that's somehow going to change a damn thing at all. Luckily the car (just) made it to the parking lot as I kept saying to myself that all this better somehow be worth all of this trouble and all this heat.

It was. The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway rises a few more thousand feet to Mount San Jacinto State Park, where views are spectacular, the short trails are rewarding and the mid 80s temperatures are welcome. The way up isn't that bad either. Round tram cars take you up that last 6,000 feet, swinging after crossing each tower, and all come with a special surprise. The floor of the tram car rotates like a turntable the entire time, constantly changing your view and constantly taking away that handy guard rail you planned to hold on to as the car swings between towers. A bit gimmicky but fun nonetheless.

Visiting Mount San Jacinto State Park is supposedly like traveling from the desert to the climate zone of Canada, so it makes some sense to follow pictures of fake Canada with real Canada.

We’re now in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where it is certainly pretty but, well, not much is happening. Downtown wasn't, well, much. I went to the only art museum I could find, walked along paths on both sides of the river and then before I knew it I already pretty much ran out of things to do.

Most (but also most definitely not all) of the destinations in the 2009 Weekend Trips Slideshow are work related. I work at an architectural firm that has a retail client (an awful, awful unnamed retail client) that has projects across the United States and Canada, and they need someone to go and look at these spaces and take pictures and measurements. There is a real randomness to this travel, and often it takes me to places I surely would never visit on my own (like Saskatoon), and with this randomness I have found that there’s always something interesting to see and do no matter where you go. Although here in Prince George, British Columbia it was a real challenge. I was there in December, which means that getting out to hike the nearby mountains wasn’t a possibility, and that weekend even the local WHL hockey team had an away game. There was a nice christmas show with christmas trees dressed as santa hats and a gingerbread house Tim Hortons (not pictured), but after that I found myself in my hotel room at a casino, catching up on some reading and looking forward to the flight back to Vancouver.