East to the desert: Palm Springs is a palm-lined oasis in the dry Coachella Valley and a curious mix of sunshine retirees and hip youngsters. Shopping, spas and golf a-plenty with resorts from modest to magnificent. We stayed at the Palm Mountain Resort and Spa: splashes of bougainvillea, citrus trees heavy with fruit and a steaming pool beneath a mountain backdrop. And Ruby’s Diner a short stroll away – the best diner breakfast ever!
Upwards to the Alpine Zone: the Palm Springs Aerial tramway whisks you from the desert heat at 2,600 feet to Alpine tundra at over 8,500 feet in 14 minutes. The cable car floor revolves as you ascend, providing everyone with views of Palm Springs in the arid Coachella Valley and the snow-clad slopes of Mount Jacinto. From the top station, trails fan out into the Mount San Jacinto State Park and Wilderness Area, a snowy wonderland and an amazing contrast to the desert below.
North to the Twilight Zone: The Joshua Tree National Park is where the Mojave and the Colorado Deserts converge in a weird and wonderful collage of strange desert flora and even stranger desert landforms. The flat desert expanses are studded with the Joshua Trees, which are not trees at all, but over-grown yuccas reaching 35 feet high and living for hundreds of years. The exclamation marks on this other-worldly scene are the towering piles of boulders that are remnants of magma upwelling from the earth’s interior and now present the perfect vantage points to contemplate this unique landscape.
