Get Off The Couch — Palm Springs

Our Cookie Jar experiment # 7 — Visiting Palm Springs

This was our 7th weekend trip in the Cookie Jar Experiment. See my first article attached at the end for background on how this started.

But, for the benefit of those unfamiliar, my wife and I put pieces of paper in a jar, pulled one out each month, and then went to that location.

This was an effort to get off the couch and visit someplace new.

I loved Palm Springs from the first moment we arrived.

It’s hard to explain the vibe there, and I will stumble over my words trying — but it’s an inclusive, friendly, laid-back, almost anything goes; we welcome everyone, non-judgemental, you just-be-you-vibe.

The words “leisure lifestyle” have been used to describe Palm Springs in Life Magazine and are still true today.

Our son started watching “Mad Men” when that series came out, and I started watching it as well.

My interest wasn’t in the storylines as much as the setting. It’s set in the 1960s, and I enjoyed seeing how the creators found furniture, homes, dishes, clothes, glassware, and the always-present ashtrays from that 60s time period.

I remember some of the ashtrays in my own home growing up.

I loved the mid-century architecture, furniture, and art. Palm Springs is known for this.

Next month is “Modernism Week” in Palm Springs, and I even managed to snag one of the hardest-to-get tickets.

“Modernism Week Signature Tour,” right after I clicked the purchase button, that tour showed up in Red, saying “sold out.” So perhaps it was the last available ticket.

Exterior tours will include the McCallum Adobe, which is the oldest structure, Villa Paradiso Estate to Albert Frey’s “Frey House II,” and the “House of Tomorrow,” where Elvis and Pricilla Presley spent their honeymoon.

These are all behind locked gates, so a rare occasion to see them. Also included will be Frank Sinatra’s Mid-Century masterpiece, Twin Palms.

I will write about “Modernism Week” next month in another story.

For our first visit to Palm Springs, we spent three nights at the Iconic Riviera Hotel.

There are so many choices for accommodations, and Palm Springs is a great place to use Airbnb, where you can stay in a mid-century home or guest house where your host lives in the main house.

Just read them carefully, as in some Airbnb guest houses, you share the pool with your host owners, and the pool may be clothing optional.

You can even rent Frank Sinatra’s Twin Palms home.

There are several clothing-optional resorts and hotels.

Dan Carlson | Meandering Naturist Wrote an excellent story on a Palm Springs resort below.

During our three-night, four-day visit, we hardly left the resort, as we enjoyed it so much, but we have been all over Palm Springs since that first visit.

The Riviera Hotel’s pool area is fantastic, and since it’s the desert and hot, the pool was the perfect spot to spend time.

After being pampered with massages, Sandys visited the beauty shop; we had great meals and relaxed by the pool; we finally left the resort and visited the Palm Spring Tramway.

The front desk clerk recommended it, and she was right; it's a must-do when in Palm Springs.

The tram ascends 8,000 feet in the largest rotating tramcars in the world. It is forty degrees colder at the top, and you can feel the weather changing as you move along.

At the top is Mt. San Jacinto State Park.

You move through four different temperature zones, which is analogous to traveling from Africa to Alaska.

At the summit, you can find great hiking, horseback riding, and in winter cross country skiing. And of course the most incredible views. On a clear day, you can see Las Vegas.

The Tram opened in 1963, which surprised me as I thought it was much newer. There are two enclosed rotating cars. Each can hold eighty persons.

It takes fifteen minutes from bottom to top. The distance is covered using five towers covering 2.5 miles.

Sandys spent time in the movie theater and gift shop while I hiked one of the two-mile trails. There are 50 miles of trails and several interesting documentary films in the theater.

We had dinner in the fine dining restaurant, which was excellent. There is also a casual cafe.

I will wrap up this 7th cookie jar travel weekend and will write more about Palm Springs next month when I cover the annual “Modernism Week.”

Here is a link to the first Cookie Jar Experiment, which discusses how and why we started doing these.

I tried to find other Palm Springs stories to link; while there are many stories on Palm Springs, the only one I could find on Globetrotters was Dan’s story.

So maybe Dan and I are the only two Globetrotters to visit and write about this great place. . . maybe so.

Happy Travels, everyone; thanks to the editors of Globetrotters for their tireless efforts to provide this great publication.