Desert Days, Week Two: Modernism and Massage

Beginning in the 1930's the Coachella Valley, and Palm Springs in particular, became a popular place for Hollywood's elite to get away from it all. Since then, pockets of the Valley became resort destinations and golf courses, high end and unique hotels and restaurants abound, shopping and spas and casinos vie for the tourist dollar.

We do enjoy certain aspects of a resort area, but rarely will we spend the dollars required to fully immerse ourselves in the culture. One thing we enjoy is a good massage. I've discovered that a resort area as expansive as the Coachella Valley will also have at least one massage school, and some massage schools will offer student massage clinics at greatly reduced prices.

Now, a massage school is not your typical massage experience. You may not get to choose the gender of your therapist, Swedish Massage may be the only style offered, the setting may be a large, darkened room with several massage tables separated by curtains and soft music in the background. In this type of setting it's nice if all participants are quiet and respectful of the others in the room.

One day this past week we treated ourselves to 1.5 hour massages for $40/each at Somatherapy Institute. The conditions described above were what we experienced, though we were asked what gender therapist we preferred upon arrival. Our therapists had been practicing massage for about a year and we each felt we got a good solid massage for the time and money spent. We were even offered a return visit for $35 for 1.5 hours if we paid for the future visit that day. I'd happily repeat this experience the next time I visit the area.

We actually dressed up and went out for Halloween this year, unusual for us! The Tonga Hut in Palm Springs had a surf band, The Dynotones, playing and Hans cannot resist a surf band!

The weather cooled down dramatically this past weekend allowing us to do some hiking in comfort right from our RV park, Sam's Family Spa. The RV park is bordered on the East by Bennett Rd and you can walk about a mile South on Bennett to where the road ends at open desert, then walk for miles as long as you avoid any private property.

Walk over the small hills at the end of Bennett Road and find the hidden canyon!

From the hills off of Bennett Rd we watched cloud shadows flow across the Little San Bernardino Mountains.
Sam's Family Spa is in the treed valley at bottom right.

Looking West towards the cloud covered San Jacinto Mountains.

Taking advantage of the cooler temps we finally hit the trail in Palm Springs as well. The trails here tend to be steep, exposed treks among the foothills of the San Jacinto Mountains with views into the Coachella Valley below. We hiked a short loop that included a steep climb up the Museum Trail, a long gentle descent on the North Lykken Trail, and the final leg through city streets back to our truck.

Looking North East from the Museum Trail, green Palm Springs gives way to
dry sandy valley studded with windmills, bordered by the San Bernardino Mountains.

Slabs of rock on the San Jacinto Mountains catch the sun as we traverse the North Lykken Trail.

Palm Springs is renowned for its mid-century modern architecture so we've spent some time driving and biking around town to check out the clean, spare lines of this style of architecture.

A Krisel butterfly-roof house in the Vista Las Palmas neighborhood.

A Dubois Swiss-Miss A-frame house in Vista Las Palmas.

Fascinating home on a hillside in The Mesa neighborhood.

We stumbled upon this Futuristic Sculpture Garden in the Movie Colony neighborhood.
Four estate-sized lots are covered with Kenny Irwin Jr's amazing robotic sculptures.

We've really enjoyed watching the wildlife at our RV parks lagoon. You can purchase small bags of food to feed the ducks, swan, tilapia and koi in the lagoon, and be entertained by the great egrets and black crowned night herons that like to fish the boiling cauldron of fish we stir up with the food pellets.

This black swan is a crack up...he begs for food with a funny little croak!

This one pair of ducks have puff balls on their heads!

Great egret getting slapped in the face by a fish!

Parent and child observe the lagoon from the safety of the waterfall.

Desert Days: High Desert Trail Time

Settled in our RV park, Sam's Family Spa, in Desert Hot Springs, we are a bit of a drive from many of the trails and things we want to do in the area. Fortunately we're getting an excellent rate by staying a month, so the savings are going in our fuel tank! We've done a couple of hikes in the high desert North of us, where it's a good 10 - 15 degrees cooler than Desert Hot Springs.

When we visited Thousand Palms Preserve the other day, the extremely helpful host (who has lived and hiked in this area for 40 years) told us of his favorite hike in Joshua Tree National Park. It's a combination of the North View, Maze and Window Rock trails (in that order). This hike is not on the park map yet, possibly because there is limited parking, but there is good signage throughout the trail and it turned out to be an excellent 7.5 mile loop hike.

To reach the trail head from the town of Joshua Tree, head South on Park Blvd. and go 1.7 miles past the National Park entrance kiosk. There will be a dirt pullout on the East side of the road with room for about four vehicles. This was about 40 miles from our home base.

We're back in the land of boulder strewn hills!

The fantastic stacked rocks frame views into the desert towns to the North.

This amazing landscape was created by magma intruding into the existing rock eons ago,
then ages of erosion from groundwater, then the surface soil eroded away leaving us with this wonderland to explore!

Bright pink baby barrel cacti caught my eye all day long...

Sometimes the eroded rocks look like a wall stacked by a person!.

Good camouflage!

The Park's namesake Joshua Trees show up in pockets on this hike.

All aglow.

Balancing act.

The deserts version of fall colors.

The Maze was a great spot to stop for lunch and do a little boulder exploring.

Bad hair day.

Window Rock is visible at the top of the peak on the right.

Rock fan.

Hans walks through bouldery beauty.

It's always a treat to hike among trees and greenery when you're in the desert and we found a beautiful high desert oasis waiting for us at Big Morongo Canyon Preserve. Located about 20 miles from our RV park near the small town of Morongo Valley, the Preserve has about four miles of trails looping through and around wetlands, plus you can hike another four miles down Big Morongo Canyon towards Desert Hot Springs. We decided to save the "down the canyon" hike for a cooler day and instead hiked all of the trails around the wetlands.

Boardwalk trails protect the fragile wetlands.

Yucca Ridge Trail took us above the wetlands for some fantastic views of the contrasting landscape.
It's easy to see where the water is around here!

With miles of dry, scrub covered hills around the Preserve it is easy to understand
why this is a major bird stopover site in spring and fall.

Looking North, the Preserve is densely packed with fremont cottonwood, honey mesquite, dwarf willow and much more.

The river of green continues into Big Morongo Canyon.
Plenty of sitting areas are scattered throughout the Preserve, great for bird watching.

The Marsh Trail winds through the thick of it all with inviting places to sit along the way.

Desert Days, Week One: Variety Spices up our Life!

We're settled in to our nice big site (#168) at Sam's Family Spa in Desert Hot Springs for a month and our first week has flown by. It's still pretty warm, most days this past week have hit the mid 90's, way too hot for us to enjoy hiking, so we've spent a lot of time both exercising and relaxing in the various pools here at the spa resort.

What a way to start the day!

Sam's is unique among the many hot springs resorts in Desert Hot Springs; their four hot mineral pools are emptied every night and the water is recycled into a lagoon, then used to water the oasis-like plantings around the property. There are also two non-mineral pools, with cooler temperatures, that have just a touch of chlorine added to keep them fresh.

At the lagoon.

One warm day we ventured out early to Sunnylands. Once the estate of Walter and Leonore Annenberg, former US Ambassadors and philanthropists, the property is now a meeting/retreat space used by world leaders plus a lovely desert garden and hospitality center which is free for the general public to enjoy and learn about the Annenbergs. One can also tour the original estate for a fee.

Modern formal native gardens at Sunnylands.

One afternoon we had the great pleasure of meeting blog readers, Zsuzsa and Tom. They live in Palm Springs and as soon as they sell their condo they will hit the road full time too. We had fun hanging out in the pools at our park followed up by happy hour; sharing the many little tidbits we've learned in our two years on the road. It was great to see their enthusiasm for this lifestyle!

Sorry "Z", I caught you with your mouth full!

Our good friends David and Wendy live just over the hill in Yucca Valley so one day we headed over to their place for lunch and had a blast riding mopeds on their track, so cool!

David and his moped cave!

Hans and David flying around the track!

We finally had a cloudy and breezy morning, bringing the temperature down just enough so we wanted to hike. Just a few miles from our park is the Thousand Palms Oasis Reserve.  Part of the Coachella Valley Preserve System, this site has miles of trails taking you through palm oases and the rather stark desert surrounding them.

Several faults that make up the San Andreas Fault flow through this area
and are the cause of the springs that allow the oases to grow.

Into the palm forest!

I had never visited a palm oasis that held so much water!

Departing the first grove, we entered a grassy/ riparian area.

Which gave way to a wash, still heavy with plant life.

The next palm garden held a substantial pond!

Leaving the oasis, the trail continued into the desert.

We crested a small hill and looked back at the palm garden.

So you can see we're getting into the swing of the desert, the heat was an adjustment after our relatively cool and comfortable temps of the summer in the Pacific Northwest but we're hitting our stride and doing some exploring and a lot of hot springs soaking!

With this fabulous sunset we knew we were back in the desert South West.