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In the case of Palm Springs that is true. With the pandemic we missed two years in the dessert. Two years of pool time and sunshine and all the things we like to do down here.
As far as family goes, though, absence make my heart grow desperate. Because of the pandemic and the new need to share my family time I find myself desperately seeking time with all my people together. When I realized that all my kids would have spring break at the same time (a miracle since it’s essentially three different colleges with totally different kinds of schedules) I did a happy dance and immediately started preparing my family that I’d be expecting them all to be in the desert at least for a few days together. We were all in to revisit all our old haunts!
As often happens, though, when plans are made so far in advance…something came up. In this case it was a funeral for Jill. (Well, for Colin’s beloved grandfather. ❤️) In the end we did still get a couple of days all together before sending Jill off to comfort her other family. And it was Heaven! All it took was rearranging seven of ten flights two weeks before our trip, a stay at a rainbow hotel and quite a few round trips to the airport but we had our fun!
Jill, Ellie and I started the trip first with a night at the Saguaro Hotel in Palm Springs. I’d wanted to stay there for years because it is painted like the rainbow and color makes me happy! And the hotel did not disappoint…at least where color was concerned. Our room had a purple door, purple carpet, a purple dresser and purple headboards. And it wasn’t too much color! (I do have to say that while they have done a fantastic job injecting color and doing the easy upgrades it is a bit like staying at a very colorful Motel 6…so don’t expect luxury!). The best color though was all on the outside. The doors and stairwells were all painted fun rainbow colors, as were the walls of the patios. The pool was a RIOT of color with rainbow towels, and a super colorful bar. Let’s be honest, though, we really weren’t cool enough to stay there. We weren’t the typical spring break crowd that was hanging at the pool. We were the geeks running around taking pictures with all the colors! Ha! The good thing about the best color being on the outside was that I could take Kate and Allen back so we could get color pictures of everybody! My Mom thought we were crazy to drive 40 minutes there and back just to take pictures but that’s how we roll. 😜
And since Ellie was helping me out by taking some social media pictures of me with my camera I just had to capture this one. It cracks me up…
Our first night staying with my Mom we got a few quick shots of us on the golf course (because we’ve not all been together there for six years I REALLY needed these!) just before two uncles and an aunt came for dinner. So nice to get to catch up with them. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen them and EONS since my girls have seen them!
Palm Springs these days is crazy. By that I mean if you don’t have reservations for dinners and activities then they aren’t going to happen. I’ve NEVER seen it this crowded! We’d planned on taking Jill up the tram for a little hike before sending her off to Salt Lake City for the funeral. Unfortunately the only time available was 7pm and that was not only after her flight left but also IN THE DARK! What the heck!? So more pool time for us.
Speaking of pool time, I was happily enjoying myself in the pool reading my book on my phone floating on a air chair. Heaven! The fact that I was holding my phone lead to lots of discussion by my people about what a risk taker I was. But I was confident because I like to watch the keynotes Apple puts out about their products. So I knew my phone could safely go underwater. I then proceeded to take some pictures underwater to show them. That quickly escalated to attempting to get an underwater selfie. We like a good challenge in our family so we figured that since there was only four of us in the pool (Kate was already showered and dry.) it should be easy to get a selfie. NOT! Not only do I not sink very well, but the water magnifies things so my arm was not really long enough to get us all in. It took us a half hour of up and down and lots of laughs to finally end up with this. Ha!
After Jill left Ellie, Kate and I did some shopping, more pool hang outs and played cards with Nana. I taught my Mom how to play Canasta and I managed to get her to play many times a day with me!
The weather was pretty toasty while we were there (mid 90’s) but it was so lovely to sit out on the patio in shorts and tank tops and soak in all that vitamin D. It was also so nice to see my Mom because she’s been down there since just after Christmas!
All in all it was a fantastic return to the desert!