The Coachella Valley

The high mountains are covered with snow with the palm trees in foreground.

One of our absolutely gorgeous sunsets taken in front of our house.

Taken in the street in front of our house. Those mountains are really covered

with snow.........more palm trees and of course our neighbors' garbage cans.

Aren't they lovely?

Another beautiful sunset taken from our front yard.

Today our temperature got to 116 degrees! Would any of you like to come for a visit? I have to say though that even in the heat, we did enjoy doing our exercises in the pool. At least the water was a bit cooler. It was only 90 degrees! It actually felt lots cooler than that because of the air temp being so warm.

I am really surprised how many of our desert visitors are still here. You would think in this weather that they would clear out fast. They seem to stay longer each year. There must be a few of them that enjoy our summer heat??? When I used to live in the desert fifty years ago, you could have shot a cannon down Palm Canyon Blvd. in Palm Springs. Of course it was just a nice little village then where lots of movie stars came to partake of our wonderful warm winter weather. So many of them had homes here. Some of the old timers still do and even a few new timers.

Of course this desert has a big draw in the winter. We have so many people come for the "season" from Canada and other cold places throughout the country. A lot goes on to bring folks here for special occasions too. There are two huge music festivals held each year at the polo grounds. One is Rock and the other is Country. They are held on consecutive weekends. So many big names perform in these concerts. Actually the Coachella Valley Music Festivals are the biggest in the country. It's amazing how the young people, particularly, flood this valley, and each year, these concerts just keep getting bigger and bigger. You can imagine how it helps our economy.

Indian Wells hosts one of the World Class Tennis Tournaments each year in their Tennis Gardens. I think the name of it is Paribus. We were fortunate to have friends that live in Indian Wells get us tickets, so we were able to experience that event, and I must say it was amazing. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures. Crazy, huh?

Another popular thing here is the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. Everyone has to try it at least once. It goes from the valley floor up to the high mountains. I went when I lived here many years ago and was one of the very early ones to go up to the top of those mountains. I have a terrible fear of heights and eveyone was kidding me and trying to rock the tram, successfully, I might add, and I was half way crazy before we got to the top. Of course there is only a return trip down, unless you are a very good hiker, so I knew I had to get on that thing again, and believe me, I sucked it up, because I didn't want anyone rocking that thing again. I was so grateful when we finally got down. I can tell you. I would NEVER do that again, but many people love it. In the winter time, you can be in the deep snow at the top and in the summer, you can hike some of the trails or have a lovely dinner there. The view is quite spectacular from the top.

We also have many museums, huge destination hotels, more golf courses than you can count and along with that are many golf tournaments including the Bob Hope Classic, PGA and Dinah Shore, and I know there are probably more that I am forgetting. Needless to say, it is really a lovely place to spend winters. So many people have second homes here and there are so many beautiful country clubs with their own private golf courses. Oh, I almost forgot, the Living Desert, where there are many different animals too, almost a small zoo. Needless to say, one could be busy every day, truly, going from one fascinating place to another.

The shopping here is memorable too. We have our own version of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. It is El Paseo drive, which has all the fancy stores, many art galleries, exclusive boutiques and so many great places to eat, lots of them right out on the sidewalk.

So yes, the desert does have it's charm. If any of you would like to visit, we do have a couple of guest rooms with really good beds. I think I've told you before how much we love company, and we hardly ever get any. So feel free everyone, just let us know and we will hang out the welcome sign.

Love you all, my great blogging friends..................

Darlene