Palm Springs, September 20-23rd, 2017 - First Retirement Get Away

I had said for years that I would like to head out of town the morning after I retire. I thought that might help ease the transition from working 40 plus years to non-stop free time.  So, Doug and I decided to head south to Palm Springs  We had been there once for a conference, however it was so hot we didn’t do much outside of our resort area. This time I was hoping to see more of the area.

We booked our room at the Hampton inn in Palm Desert, about 20 minutes from downtown Palm Springs.

We arrived about 10:30 am on Wed 10/20, rented a car and headed to our hotel. The weather was beautiful, not too hot.  By the time we got to our hotel we were ready for lunch. After checking in we had to wait awhile for the room so we went across the street to Rocs Firehouse Grille (pub) for a bite to eat. The food was great, nice portions and appealing.  

After lunch we checked into our room and I went to check out the pool.  There were places in the shade and it was a nice quiet place to rest, catch up on reading, email etc.   

That evening we planned on going to Palm Springs for dinner so Doug picked the restaurant and made reservations.  We made our way to downtown and found a parking place and walked to the restaurant.  They were not very busy but Doug told them we had reservations and asked if we could sit outside. We were seated and Doug went back in to use the restroom. I was eating chips when he walked out and said we were at the wrong restaurant and he really wanted to go to the correct one. Awkward! They were gracious and said they were actually related to the other one and steered us in the right direction which was about 8 blocks north. 

So, we had a nice walk and got to the other one, Las Casuelas Terraza in time for our reservation.  They were much busier and the environment was more festive.  We sat down at a table outside and ordered drinks.  Once again Doug excused himself and in a couple minutes came back and handed me an envelope.    After some confusion I found out that the restaurant had been selected ahead of time and the envelope was a gift certificate from the financial planning company that we have been working with for years.  What a pleasant surprise!  Doug of course was in on the whole thing and now I understood why going to the wrong restaurant was not going to work. We had a great meal and enjoyed our evening.

On Thursday we got up and took a drive to Pioneertown which is a little western town about an hour from the hotel.  We got there and it was very quiet, with some of the buildings (stores) not open.  They said that it is much busier on the weekends.  The one place that was open was the Pappy and Harriets which is a music venue and restaurant.  They have live music on Thursday nights and an annual music festival weekend which happened to begin the next day.  It’s a fun place with good food.  We didn’t stay for music but it would be fun to come back.  An interesting story was that Paul McCartney played at this venue the year before.  It was not announced until earlier the same day.  How fun that he would chose this little western town in the desert! That would have been fun to see.  

After we got back to the hotel we rested for awhile then went downtown Palm Springs for their Villagefest, which is their Thursday night street fair.  We had dinner at Sammy G’s Tuscan Grill which was very good. 

Friday morning we got up and after breakfast at the hotel, we stopped at Starbucks which was across from the hotel and drove to Joshua Tree National Park.  It was about an hour from our hotel and we actually passed the road to Pioneer Town which we had gone to the day before.  We stopped at the visitor center near the park entrance and got a map and directions for a leisurely drive through the park,  the weather was hot but there were several people preparing to hike in the park.   We drove to the entrance and I used my senior pass which I bought the year before.  They have discontinued selling the senior permanent passes now, but I bought it for 10.00 and it’s good for everyone in the car. My will continue to be good, just others can no longer buy them.  It would have been 25.00 to get in.

Joshua Tree is such a beautiful park with large rock formations, areas of just piles and mounds of rocks, and then areas of natural cactus gardens.  We stopped several times and left the park 3 hours later.  On our drive back to the hotel we stopped at Taco Del Mar for a quick bite to eat.  

Once we got to the hotel Doug did a little work and rested in the room and I took my tablet and went to the pool. 

Friday evening we headed over to Grill-A-Burger which I found under Diners, Drive Ins and Dives and we thought would be a fun place to try for dinner. We got there at 8:00 pm and they we just closing! On a Friday night!  What a sleepy little town!  So after trying to find something other than the chain restaurants we headed back to the hotel and the firehouse grill which we had been to the first day.  We were both tired by then so after dinner we just went back to the hotel.  

On Saturday we had breakfast at the hotel then headed to the airport for our flight home.  We both felt that although Palm Springs is a nice area, and the weather is beautiful, there is not a lot to do if you are not a golfer.