Our destination for the morning was the trail head for Cool Canyon. There was a guided hike scheduled for the morning so we were going to try to meet up with them. The instructions for the meeting point were: Turn on the county high, go through town, and then at the first dirt road past the park boundary sign, pull off. Four wheel drive is not needed. This always makes me a little concerned in a rental car but we would give it a try. At the indicated dirt road there was no parking area or signs but a few places to pull in between scrub brush so we did and then waited for someone to show up. A few minutes later about 10 vehicles with Canadian tags pull into the area. As we found out on the hike this is a group that meets weekly doing different hikes in the area and most are snowbirds from Canada or other northern locales. The average age was easily mid-70s. One couple had been spending their winters in the area for years and were the naturalists leading the group and pointing out different plants, flowers, and birds. While the pace of the hike was fairly slow, even for a pregnant woman, it was very interesting to look at the details that the rest of the group was very knowledgeable about-- where to look for pottery chards or rocks that were used to grind grain, the tiny desert plants just starting to poke through the rocky soil, or the butterfly flitting across the trail. It was also interesting to observe the difference in vegetation on one side of the canyon that was always in the shade compared to 10 feet across the trail that was exposed to the sun and wind. We met a few interesting people and it also gave us some ideas for our retirement-- oh so many years away.
After our hike we continued to drive across the desert but were fascinated how different desert can look. We finally jumped back onto the interstate with the hoards and made our way to Rancho Mirage. We had about an hour before we checked into our bed and breakfast so we headed to the local library. We had a wonderful time browsing around and sitting to read-- pretty relaxing for one of our vacations. Our accommodations for the next two nights was a PEO bed and breakfast. PEO is a women's group that Alex is a part of and members from across the country will open their homes as a bed and breakfast with the proceeds going towards scholarships for women's education. The home we were staying at in Rancho Mirage was a part of a gated community with gorgeous landscaping and a canal with swans and paddle boats. Our host was lovely and very welcoming. Each morning she had a wonderful breakfast laid out and even included some local items such as date bread since there are palm dates farms in the area and fresh lemon curd. We enjoyed talking about traveling and also hearing about living in the region. Arthur and I have stayed in a variety of locations on our travels-- convents, hostel bunk rooms, off-the-grid tiny houses, tents-- this was probably the swankiest. At the end of our stay Arthur was sad to leave the king size bed to return to his own bed back home.
Our evenings activities took us into Palm Springs where we found a great Mexican restaurant with delightful surf and turf tacos. We ate on the patio as the sun set behind the mountain which Alex loved-- she never passes an opportunity to eat outside. Mosing on to downtown we were planning to go to the art museum which was open late and free on Thursday nights. However there was a street fair going on as well making parking a nightmare-- thanks again California. After circling a few times and almost throwing in the hat we saw a car backing out and were in prime position. We enjoyed several of the special exhibits including one on glass blowing. The museum had a mix of modern, Western, and Native American art. I'm usually not much of a fan of modern art but we had a good time discussing the pieces. Back at our bed and breakfast we settled in for a little quiet reading before bed.
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