Saturday, March 17, 2012

palm springs

A weekend getaway to Palm Springs
sans child!
A weekend of lounging, eating, swimming, bike riding, and exploring
just the two of us.
All while staying at the uber chic ACE hotel!


The weekend started off so well.




A beautiful drive through the desert with rainbows, wind mills, and amazing clouds.



Then we checked into ACE hotel and started to get settled in with a nice lunch there.



Our awesome room that had a cool casual camp vibe.

Canvas 'tenting', funky lighting, vintage photographs, and even a record player.
This was by far the coolest hotel around.



The grounds of ACE had all these adorable orange trees everywhere.
They made me happy.


It had been a wonderful afternoon so far, albeit super windy, but still quite lovely.
But by 1:00 the wind really started to blow and suddenly the town was being torn apart.


Within a couple of hours most of Palm Springs looked like this.


This had been an art festival that was completely destroyed, along with most of the original art that was being displayed and for sale.


It was really an intense experience walking around town in such strong wind with gusts around 80-100 mph.
And to see all the damage.....the broken store front windows, water spewing into the air from broken water pipes, cars battered, mountains of palm frawns in the streets, and of course so many fallen trees.


So this beautiful, sunny Saturday suddenly was not so pretty anymore.  90% of Palm Springs was without power, including most restaurants and our own hotel.  All the pools were filled with dirt and debris and we were now faced with the decision of what to do.

It was now dark and all we had was a little lantern to light our room.
No where to eat, no hot tub to soak in, no tv to watch.
And we were paying a premium to stay where we were staying.

We decided to head out of town (and get a full refund) and stay in Hemet where Gavin was being watched by friends and where the power was on.  We luckily found a nice and resonably priced hotel to stay in, but it was no ACE.


So the next day morphed backed into a regular 'family day' with the addition of Gavin in the backseat once again.

We tweaked our plans a little, but it was still a really fun day.
Despite a few melt-downs...by both Gavin and myself :-)




Some fun with dinosaurs!


The big plan for the day was to finally ride the aerial tram to the top of the mountain from the desert below.
What an amazing ride!



Suddenly the cactus and heat were gone and we were surrounded by pine trees and cold, crisp mountain air.

And snow!


We had a lot of fun exploring the woods, 'sledding', and making snowballs.


So the weekend was not the one we had planned on, but that is life.
We were handed the proverbial lemons and had to make lemonade out of it.

It was not the kids-free, lounge-around-like-we-expected weekend,
but it was an adventure and a fun-filled family getaway for sure.
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But the next time we go to Palm Springs we will definitely make sure there are no wind advisories in place.