Desert Trip (Day 3)

Another nice day in Palm Desert. We slept in a little then decided to explore the area. Our first stop was a huge street fair on the campus of College of the Desert. The fair had about 350 vendors and is a pretty big deal in town. The vendors set-up every Saturday and Sunday from September to May each year. Virtually all of the stuff for sale was new and ranged from crafts such as homemade jewelry and local art to a lot of things you might see for sale at state fairs. It was all very interesting and we bought a few little things, but it was fun to watch the customers, not your typical flea market crowd.

There were a lot of snowbirds in town, mostly from places like Calgary, British Columbia, and Northern Tier states in the U.S. There was also a visible "golfing crowd" with more than a few booths selling golf balls, golf clubs, and assorted golfing paraphernalia, etc. As the area is saturated with country clubs and golf courses, it is a natural Snowbird destination for golfers. Think about it - if you like to play golf and enjoy warm weather and many resort amenities, would you rather spend February in Winnipeg or the Palm Springs area? We also had lunch (Greek food) at the food court at the fair while listening to a very good South American acoustic duo.

After the fair closed down at 2:00 PM, we decided to take the tram ride up to the summit of San Jacinto Mountain on the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. The tram is a local tourist atraction just NW of Palm Springs that goes from about 2000 ft to the top of the mountain at 8500 ft. It is a fairly exciting 11 minute ride in a rotating gondola with spectacular views on the way up and down.

The top of the mountain is actually the entrance to San Jacinto State Park, a 13,500 square mile preserved wilderness with 53 miles of hiking trails and 6 walk-in backpacking campgrounds. The park is unique in that there are no roads leading into it. Everything in the upper tram station/visitor's center/restaurant complex has been taken up there on (or fastened under) the same tram cars that we rode up and down on, including all of the fresh water used in the facility each day.

After two days here, we have a few observations about the area: First, it is a very nice area with great winter weather. Secondly, it is obviously a haven for people with resources who are looking for a resort environment with a variety of outdoor recreation ameneties, especially golf. There is a wide range of cultural attractions, upscale shopping areas, and, it appears, a lot of good restaurants. The area is also a poster child for "desert sprawl" - lots of room to spread out with distributed shopping malls and evey kind of shopping opportunity you can imagine - from big box to mom-and-pop stores and every franchise store you can think of is here. There is also a very large number of walled, gated entry housing/country club/spa/resort communities throughout the area. Not sure what exactly is behind the gates, but it appears there are a lot of very nice homes and condos with resort amenities of every kind. We also suspect there a very large number of vacant and foreclosed homes available based on the general economic condition and how it has affected second homes and vacation condo sales in CA.

The area is also very attractively landscaped and most of the roads are wide and well maintained. We didn't see much urban blight and it doesn't seem like there a lot of people just "hanging around". My guess is that homeless people, etc. are encouraged by the local authorities to move along. Another obsevation is that it takes an incredible amount of water to make the area liveable, to say nothing about the water to maintain the large number of golf courses. I guess it all comes from the Colorado River which at some point, should limit how much more development in the desert can be sustained.

I think we are going up to Josuha Tree National Park tommorow - about an hour's drive north of here. We will see how we feel in the morning and go from there.