In early March, coincidental with Sarah’s Spring Break and the Easter holiday, my company sent the two of us on an expenses-paid trip to sunny Palm Springs, California. I’m pretty sure ‘sunny’ is a part of the name of the town, but I could never get a straight answer about it from any of the residents.

The trip’s main purpose was a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) conference I was there to attend. I got quite a lot out of the conference, and while I was there, Sarah got quite a lot out of the hotel pool and walking around the downtown area.

This was the view from the balcony in our room at the Hilton.

We got to spend some time in a park downtown between conference sessions. The only plants native to the desert are of the extremely non-cuddly variety, so just about every plant that’s out of place, like this grass, was put there by people. Later in the trip, we got to see the city from a nearby mountain, and we got to see the amazing contrast between landscaped areas like this with the desert, which in some cases was just across the street.

This was the first time either Sarah or I had been anywhere near California, and we had a fantastic time. When the conference was done, we stuck around for a few extra days so we could see what was in the area. After all, we were brand new to this alien land and were not about to pass up a chance to see some of the outdoors here in the West.

The day after my conference was over, we took the Palm Springs Aerial Tram (a big, rotating cable car) up to the top of Mount San Jacinto, to the site of San Jacinto State Park.

The state park is several thousand feet in altitude above the desert valley, and there was enough of a temperature difference that there was quite a lot of snow still on the ground up there. While riding the cable car, the recorded announcer/guide voice said that the climate difference between the bottom and top ends of the cable car run is very much like the climate difference between Mexico and Alaska.

Naturally, we couldn’t resist throwing a few snowballs while we were there.

Next Week: Part 2 of our trip to California takes us to Joshua Tree National Park, about a 45-minute drive from Palm Springs.