Home to beautiful weather, springtime in Vermont. Daffodils are blooming and it is warm and sunny. We had a lovely low-key week in Palm Springs. The weather was hot, dry, and clear skies the whole time we were there. The first few days were really hot with temps nearing 100, and then we got a break and had upper 80's for the remainder of the week.  

04/12 - Easy flights that started early: Burlington to Chicago, Chicago to Palm Springs. We landed in upper 90's temps at 2:30 PM. We both had colds before we left and were hoping that the desert warmth would bake them out of us. B got over his faster than I did. I felt OK but most days was hoarse and coughing. We checked in to the Las Palmas resort, even in the same room as last time (two years ago). They have changed owners and are planning to remodel the place and turn it into a rehab center for gay men. I think the property may have languished a bit during the changeover since the plants looked stressed. The other noticeable change was that there is no cocktail hour on weekends and the breakfasts are about as simple as they can be: bagels and cold cereal. The former owners did a nice job with breakfasts. Oh, and it was not at all full and the crowd was quite tame. Nobody was exercising the clothing optional option.

We walked the 1.5 miles into town and ate a late lunch at Grill-A-Burger, remarking as usual, how California has a plethora of excellent burger places. And also as usual, wondering why burgers in California are better than burgers anywhere else. If anybody can point me to a good burger place in Vermont, please do!

We walked back and took naps. Woke up and decided that the late lunch was food enough so instead we had drinks and went and danced at Hunters Video Bar. Back to the resort and relaxed, just us, in the hot tub.

One good thing about staying at Las Palmas: We end up walking a lot every day, usually two trips into town and back, almost 6 miles of walking each day just doing that.

04/13 - Lazy mornings by the pool are the usual for us here. So we had that. We drove down to El Mirasol for huge Mexican lunch. They make the best chunky guacamole and I had a giant plate of chicken mole. B had grilled shrimps in some kind of garlic sauce.



After lunch, we drove to Joshua Tree and walked around.



Last time we couldn't go to the big overlook spot because the road was closed due to snow.



No snow this time, and we drove through the whole park.



Stupidly, we didn't bring any water with us and we were thirsty and sluggish from our big lunches. But the gorgeous scenery revived us.



Dinner was at Wang's In The Desert, a pan-Asian place that we always enjoy. We checked the bars on the way back, but it was very quiet. Met a couple of nice guys back at the hotel pool, but they were a bit standoffish, so no budding friendships.

04/14 - Another lazy morning poolside. Lunch at the Fisherman's Market: raw oysters followed by swordfish tacos. Excellent lunch. If that place were nearby, I'd eat lunch there often. We did some shopping and then drove out to the outlets so B could shop some more. I ended up getting some cool stuff, too.

Dinner was at Zin. The guy that waited on us both other trips was still working there, but he didn't wait on us this time. I overheard him saying that he was off to NYC to do some sort of wine job there. Good for him! Dinner was very good, as expected: more raw oysters, beet salad, and then veal cheeks and sweetbreads. My critique was that the veal could have been cooked lower and slower to melt more of the fat, while the sweetbreads were overdone.

The walk back seemed long, the bars were dead. I laid on the bed to wait for B to decide if we were going to take the car and find a busy bar, and he was out checking the hot tub and pool, and I guess I fell completely asleep. I woke up and his robe and towel were gone, so I figured he was in the pool or hot tub and I took out my contacts and went back to sleep. My cold, walking in the heat, and the wine all caught up with me I guess. Not much of a party boy so far. Snooze.

04/15 - Lazy morning followed by lunch at Tyler's. They make the best burgers in town. We went and saw Gary Dorothy's new stuff at Imageville and bought the third of his bougainvillea blossoms in the pool picture - to go with the first two. We also got an incredible picture of sunlight sparkles on water. He does such good work. Then we went to Hephaestus and talked with Jeff Timms. He's the one who did our rings that we got for our 20th anniversary. B wanted a ring with a stone for his left hand and I wanted something but wasn't sure. Jeff helped B pick out a nice ring with a gap in the band and will put a yellow stone in the gap. Meanwhile I found a titanium band with two green titanium stripes in it. Back to hang out by the pool for a while. Then we went and looked at the new leather/gear store (Gear) and of course we had to go to Target. (There is no Target in Vermont, although Plattsburgh is supposed to be getting one soon.)

Last trip to PS, we had drinks almost every night at Boscoso (or however they spell it). It was owned by the Wang's people and was very popular. They made huge martinis and we befriended the bartender. Well, we stopped in for a drink and it was empty. The drinks are still big, but the bartender said they weren't owned by Wang's anymore and it wasn't very busy.

Dinner was at Copley's, and was very "old school" Palm Springs. The restaruant itself is in a compound that used to be Cary Grant's house. That in and of itself sets the tone for the dining experience there. They have wonderful outdoor seating, but the winds were picking up so we sat inside. I had tuna tacos made with raw tuna and the taco shell was Asiany. B had seviche. Both were good, but also kind of heavy/supper club-ish. We each had halibut, but prepared a bit differently. We walked back to the room and again I crashed early.

04/16 - We had lunch at Sherman's Deli after lounging by the pool again. I ate two bowls of cereal because I was starving and then when we got to the deli, I wasn't very hungry. Not so good since they are known for HUGE portions of good food. After that, we went to the Cathedral City Boys' Club for the afternoon. It's always crowded on Wednesdays and a good time was had by all. Dinner was at The Falls, an upscale steakhouse. This was the best dinner of the trip: raw oysters, a beet salad that was presented as a tower of food, and then a kobe beef sampler of both Japanese and American versions of kobe beef. Dessert, which we didn't have very often on this trip, was to be shared and was a giant square of layered chocolate cakes and ganaches, with a rectangle cut out of the center and through one side. When they brought it to the table, they poured chocolate sauce into that rectangle and it made a chocolate waterfall down the side. It was really cool and it was huge. We only ate half and took the other half back... where it sat in the refrigerator in our room and was never eaten.

04/17 - We had lunch at Las Casuelas and had big giant margaritas as part of that. We wandered back to the hotel and we both fell completely asleep and selpt until time to get ready for dinner. It was luxurious and we didn't really have plans to do anything else anyway. We stopped by an art opening for some of Tom Bianchi's early work. It was filled with a-gay types and I was immediatly socially uncomfortable. I think B would have stayed and had some wine and mingled, maybe tried to meet some people, but I was not into it. They block off the main drag in PS on Thursday evenings and have a street vendor thing. So we walked down through that and ended up back at The Falls for drinks. The bartenders remembered us, but they're busy there, so there's not a whole lot of chit-chat. They do this cool thing with some of the drinks where they put a small ball of something (dry ice maybe?) in it and it bubbles and creates a fog of smoke coming out of the drink. Dinner was at Pomme Frite where we have gone every year and had mussels and frites. Excellent food and some local entertainment: the couple next to us (young) and the couple next to them (older) hit it off talking. Turned out that the young couple's father bought something (artowrk? restored car?) from the son of the older couple. Lots of "small world" discussion. Then the older couple started talking about their famous friends in Palm Springs, including Paul Newman. I tried not to stare and listen the whole time. And the older couple looked very old school PS, She had white blond hair and both of them had a little too much jewelry, and they had two dogs with them. Grand. Back to the hotel, changed clothes, and went in search of busy bars. Ended up at Toucan's Tiki Lounge and had a fun time. We met a guy who is a dancer in the Palm Srpings Follies (a musical review featuring really old performers). We got a bit of inside scoop about how it is to work on the show. And the highlight of the evening was watching one guy put probably $100 in the go-go dancers' underwear. And he did it $1 at a time over the course of the evening.

04/18 - Things picked up in town as it was the start of White Party. (My joke about "white power" never got old... for me, heh). We lounged by the pool one last time. The housekeeper guy chatted me up a bit and demonstrated the complete failure of his geographical education: He didn't know where Vermont is. On our way to lunch, we stopped back in a few stores, including a menswear store that was having a special on bathing suits for White Party. It turned out that the designer of the suits was going to be there, and he came in while we were looking around. He suggested suits for us to try and we both got cute new ones. The store was going to have a guy dancing in the window and had several posters that the swimsuit designer brought with him. I was chatting up the dancer while B was trying on suits. They pulled out one of the posters and the guy says, "Oh, that's my friend Aaron." And I said, "Oh, he dances at Tucan's, right?" I recognized him as one of the go-go dancers that got a lot of money from the evening before.

We opted to go back to Tylers for burgers one more time, and it was a big parade of amusements with all kinds of interesting people to look at. A little more shopping and wandering back to the hotel. A group of young guys had checked in so it was much livelier around the pool. We spent a good deal of time packing things up and getting ready for dinner. We hadn't made firm plans and ended up wandering back downtown. We hit The Falls for one more drink. Then we checked out a couple of places and ended up eating at The Chop House, where we'd had such a good dinner last year. The deciding factor was that they had raw oysters. So we had that, and shared an heirloom tomato sampler, and both had a regular fillet mignon. It was all very good.

Wandering back to the hotel, all the bars were really busy because of White Party. There was a huge line to get into Hunters, so we didn't go there. We walked back over to the main drag and there was a crowd at Mixie's, that had been dead all week. So we went in and hung out for a while, watching video of last year's White Party and watching people. Then one of the bartenders from The Falls came in and said hello. That was funny because it was the one that B had been flirting with a bit. But he put himself off in a corner and we didn't talk to him at all after that.

Our flight home was severely early: 5:44 AM, so we went back and tried to get some sleep.

04/19 - We were up at 4 AM and the flight was on time. Palm Springs to San Francisco, SF to Dulles (with very little in between time - we basically got off one plane and onto the next), then Dulles to Burlington (which was an hour late leaving). It was a long day but both our luggage and us made all the connections. We were home by about 8 PM on Saturday. It has been warm in Burlington and there's no snow left.

Sunday was recovery day, some grocery shopping, and a normal bike ride in the evening. Today has been reentry to work and trying to keep a positive attitude. At least it is warm and sunny again today.