Travel Trifecta: Palm Springs, La Jolla, Bethany Beach

"Prickly oddity"

PS I'm not sure I love you

Palm Springs slogan

Leaving DC in February to go to California always seems like a good idea. Judy picked me up at LAX and we drove to Palm Springs. I had never been and was always curious about Palm Springs, a location that is both compared to and seems redundant to Tucson. I was ready to compare and contrast. Palm Springs features excellent winter weather and is in a desert nestled against the San Jacinto mountains. Judy described it as a “poor man’s Tucson.” It’s more like a rich man’s Tucson. But the problem is, it isn’t Tucson. If Tucson were a human body, Palm Springs would be like the thumbnail. 

Marilyn welcomes you to PS

The mountains are more “immediate” than those in Tucson unless you live in the foothills. And it’s only a two-hour drive for Hollywood types who swarmed it in the 30s and created rich enclaves like the Palm Springs Racquet Club. Imagine volleying with Humphrey and Clark. 

I ran in Palm Springs each morning, starting down the main drag, Palm Canyon Drive, not terribly interesting. But when I ran into the residential area you could easily mistake it for Beverly Hills East. Huge properties with huge hedges supported by large hedge funds. 

Mid-century modern

Hacienda

Palm Springs is full of glamourous people and top-notch restaurants, right? Um, that was not our experience. The first night we ate at a Mexican chain restaurant called Las Casuelas. Shame on us, I know. We agreed the tacos were the worst we had ever had. The second night the concierge steered us to Grand Central which had the atmosphere of a gas station and a welcoming plume of grease from the open kitchen. The restaurant even failed on French fries, and you know things are bad when the best part of the meal is the Brussels sprouts appetizer. 

There we met one of Judy’s dear artist friends who had moved to Palm Springs about a year ago. By coincidence she is from Tucson. She compared Palm Springs to Tucson unfavorably, to say the least. “There are no good restaurants here, no shopping, no men, and even the gay men aren’t that interesting.” She went on to describe a scene of poverty and meth addicts and people with teardrop tattoos. Plus, in 2020, Palm Springs had 151 days over 100 degrees. Compare this to Tucson's reasonable number of 108 days over 100 degrees. Seventy one days were over 110 degrees.  “You can’t even go outside when it’s like that,” she added.

But we were in Palm Springs during the opposite weather extreme. It was cold and one day it had the nerve to rain (average rainfall 5.2 inches a year). We stayed at the Kimpton Rowan Hotel, which was lovely, with a delightful outdoor breakfast cafe, and a rooftop pool. We had one good dinner at Il Corso on our last night. There were pieces of lobster in my pasta and Judy had cioppino, and they addressed us each as Madame. This was more like it. 

Dr. Seuss vegetation--Joshua tree

But the best part of this particular trip to Palm Springs was leaving Palm Springs! We took a field trip to Joshua Tree National Park which was more like an acid trip. These “trees” look like some sort of hybrid creature, like a centaur or a satyr. They seem half yucca, half palm tree. The NPS website compares them to something out of Dr. Seuss, but I prefer their term "prickly oddity." The snowfall in the park added to the mystery and the wonder and the clearing skies turned into something supernatural.

Big sky

La Jolla, California

Bird Rock, La Jolla

Midweek I drove down to La Jolla to meet Darr at the Beiser’s house. Darr was there to scan family photos and shoot succulents. There we had the added bonus of being joined by Joe Rhodes who had spent several weeks in LA and thought nothing of driving down to meet us in his Traipsemobile. Hey, we were in the same state, after all. 

With the one and only Joe Rhodes

Joe is value-added in any social situation and we had a great dinner at Beaumont’s Eatery and pastries from Wayfarer and walked down to the ocean, where the view “doesn’t suck." 

Any view will do in La Jolla

We also got to celebrate Jane’s 80th birthday with a family dinner at Mongolian Hot Pot. Call me a princess, but I would rather have someone else cook my food. Even though Laura was putting the cooked pieces of food in my bowl, like feeding a child. Afterwards, Jolene and Jitsujo told us what they had been served from the hotpot when they lived in China: intestines, beaks and baby birds. Time for the chocolate birthday cake! 

The CA Beisers: Jolene, Jane, Dean, Jitsujo, Lisa, Laura

Bethany Beach, Delaware 

Sunrise

Four days after I returned from California, I went with a friend to Sea Colony at Bethany Beach, Delaware to give equal time to the Atlantic Ocean. We had an oceanfront condo, and the sunrise delivered, dripping wet. We weren’t just there in off-season. We were there in off-off-season. The high was 38 the day we arrived. We were quite alone at the beach.

Sea Colony--732 oceanfront apartments

We were there primarily to take classes at the Sea Colony Tennis Center. We didn’t realize how booked up it would be, even off season. It seems there are many year-round residents in Bethany, possibly retired, who want to play tennis every day like I do. We made it into a couple of clinics, Live Ball and Cardio Tennis, and we loved the pro, and our fellow players. 

Jammie time sleepover

The rest of the time we did girlie things like have cheese and crackers for dinner, watch movies and put on facial masks. We had a nice dinner at Blue Coast Seafood Grill which was hopping at the traditional blue-hair hour of 5 p.m. I had blackened shrimp gumbo with grits and dotted with fried okra. 

In sum, I can report that both oceans are doing very well, that the desert is cold, and that the Joshua trees are cray-cray.

Succulents forever