After some action-packed, whirlwind days of hiking and sightseeing, today we took a more leisurely pace:

• drove around the Salton Sea, visiting Salvation Mountain and Slab City.  Salvation Mountain is basically a huge art installation by a dude who wanted to spread the love of God.  The guy has passed on a few years ago, but his legacy continues with a non profit board continuing his work.  Hopefully I’ll be able to figure out how to post up pictures to show off just what I’m describing.  On the other hand, Slab City is a community of squatters and people outside the fringes of society — if you have a tent or RV, then lay down your stakes and call it home.  We drove around the open areas and found that some enterprising people have opened up a hostel, Internet cafe, library and more.  But with temperatures reaching 120 degrees in the summer, this is one place that Lisa and I won’t be retiring to.
• the Salton Sea is 35 miles long by 15 miles wide and has been the subject of so many shattered dreams and land speculating, we just had to check it out.  From far away it is beautiful — who wouldn’t want to live near it? — but come closer and you can smell the odor of yuck … from dead fish to blue algae growth to neglect.
• we drove Box Canyon Road through the Mecca Hills and up to Joshua Tree National Park, taking a quick stop at the south entrance Visitor Center before heading out to Shield’s Date Farm and happy hour at a local Mexican joint.
• we finished our evening at the Living Desert WildLights – fortunately it wasn’t super cold, and we managed to stroll around for almost two hours admiring the holiday lights and catching glimpses of animals still on exhibit like the porcupine and the giraffe.

Expense log; rental car averages $21 per day

$25   Joshua Tree National Park entrance fee (good for seven days)
$15.78  Happy Hour at Pueblo Viejo Grill — the steak nachos were the bomb!
$20  Living Desert WildLights admission
$7.25  Date butter gift
$20.20  Gas
$7.24  Subway lunch

$95.47

Whew, what a day!

Early rising for a quick workout, breakfast and out the door by 7:30am…but as is the case, best laid plans usually have a few delays, so we didn’t actually leave until just before 8:30am.  We drove to Indian Canyons and did a series of hikes — Murray Canyon (four miles), Andreas Canyon (one mile) and finished with the Palm Canyon/Victor loop (three miles).  Super hikes, easy enough and just beautiful.  Once again we took too many pictures and the sad thing is that the pictures will never do proper justice.  Our evening finished with a ride up the Palm Springs Aerial Tram for twilight views and a dinner on top — but man was it cold up there!  Over 8,000 feet, the tram travels up and down in just under fifteen minutes.  It’s not cheap, but we are glad we did it.  Now, on to some sleep!

Daily expenses.  Rental car average is $21 per day.

$18   Admission charge to Indian Canyons (it is on Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indian land)
$5  Palm Springs Aerial Tram parking fee
$72  Palm Springs Aerial Tram Ride and Dine package (regular tram price is $22.95 per person)
$22.72  Costco gas at $2.68 per gallon

$117.72  Total daily expenses (plus $21 for rental car)

Our first full day in Palm Springs was spent doing some shopping at the La Quinta Farmer’s Market and at the weekly Street Fair at College of the Desert… picked up gifts (because Christmas is so close, duh!) and Lisa even bought something for herself from a very smooth “clothes designer” hustler at the Street Fair.  The rest of the day was spent driving the Palms to Pines Highway, a very twisty and scenic drive that was made famous in the opening scene of the movie “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.”  Our midpoint destination was Idyllwild, a small mountain town with a thriving arts scene and plenty of day trippers from San Diego and Los Angeles.  We didn’t quite dress up for the mountain, as the higher altitude and strong winds made for some chilly walking.  We took our time completing the loop, stopping by the roadside attraction Cabazon Dinosaurs and driving through the lights of Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs.  We returned to our hotel to soak in the hot tub and eat in — we still had a bunch of food left over from last night’s Walmart run, so why not just rest up early for tomorrow’s adventures!

Here is the log of our expenses for the day.  The rental car averages about $21 per day and we will note gas expenses when we fill up.

$0   Hotel – used points to trade for free nights
$0  Breakfast — free buffet at our hotel
$16.10  Lunch, Po’boy hoagie with slaw and potatoes
$3.50  Day old bacon & cheddar scones
$2  Raspberries from the farmer’s market
$82  Gifts and souvenirs
$0  Dinner — just ate our leftovers from the previous night’s ‘dinner’

Total spent:  $103.60

Early rising to catch our 6:24am MAX to the airport.  Huge lines for Alaska Airlines, not so much for Southwest.  Security lines were jammed, but we have TSA Pre-Check so even though we picked the slow line, we got through security within five minutes.  Using our Priority Pass dining credits, we split a big breakfast at Caper’s Cafe, and still had enough to get a sandwich and salad packed to go.

The first leg of our flight took us to Sacramento and we had a 90-minute layover, which we used part of to watch a documentary about the Salton Sea.  Soon enough we were on our flight to Ontario, arriving on time.  We got to the rental car counter at 2:09pm, but my rental wasn’t until 2:30pm …. the attendant said that if I started my rental early, it would charge me more, so we waited the 21 minutes to officially get the rental car, which turned out to be a Mazda 6.

First stop on our winter vacation?  The Outlet Mall!  We made our way to the Desert Hills Premium Outlets and wandered around some pretty fancy stores — some even had lines outside just to get in, like Ugg Australia and Toni Burch.  Lisa ended up getting some items at Eddie Bauer, of course.  Our window shopping completed, we drove the final half-hour to Palm Desert and checked into our hotel, which will be our home for the next week!  When we entered the room, I just pretended that this was a suite on a cruise ship, since seven days is the same amount of time we would be on a cruise.  And when on a cruise, you pamper yourself, which for us means getting massages!  I bought a Living Social deal for a one-hour couples massage, which only a mile away from our hotel.  It was fabulous — they even used some hot stones during the session.

After the massage, it was almost 8pm and we hadn’t really eaten since the early afternoon, but we weren’t super hungry to go to a restaurant.  So where do we go on a Saturday night date — yep, Walmart!  We stocked up on some healthy groceries like Cheetos, cheese and salami, popcorn chicken (half-price from the deli!) and wine, then we took it back to our hotel where Lisa enjoyed another edition of “Property Brothers.”  Ah, yes, when on vacation, you watch HGTV.  And you go to bed early (like, before 10:30pm), because tomorrow is a big day!