Until this week, I had never been to Palm Springs, California.  My parents used to go there every winter for a few years, but that wasn’t until I was an adult, an I never had a reason to go there before.  This week, Hubby and I hopped a plane and went down to a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar at a resort in Indian Wells, not too far from Palm Springs.  When we left, it was 46 degrees and raining in Seattle, with some snow in the weekly forecast.

When we touched down at the Palm Springs airport, it was in the 60s and clear (and 10:30PM).  So we drove to the resort in Indian Wells, in the dark, and didn’t see much.  When we got to our room, we were impressed, but tired.  The conference did not start until the next afternoon, so we got a pretty good night’s sleep.  When we arose Tuesday morning, the sun was shining, and it was about 70 degrees.  We walked out on our balcony to see the view, and gasped.

We really didn’t know about the mountains that were so close behind the resort!  We dressed and went to find the restaurant so we could have a nice breakfast.  We walked out our door, into the hallway, which had rooms on one side, and a vast open area in the center.  There are seven floors to the building, with rooms all around the periphery-we were lucky to have a sixth-floor room.

I was fascinated by the view from the sixth floor, to the Terrace below.

Looks like abstract art, doesn’t it?  There’s a bar there, and a sushi bar too.

We took the elevator to the Lobby level, and walked down the Grand Staircase to the Terrace level to walk outside to the restaurant.

This is the pool area.  Looks very inviting!

Along the walkway, we noticed the plantings, some of them contained roses that were still blooming.

And there were a fair number of desert plants, like this one.

Of course, what would Palm Springs (and Palm Desert, etc) be without the requisite palm trees.  I looked up to hear a bunch of blackbirds in the tree above me.

How many blackbirds can you count in the tree?

After breakfast, we took a stroll around the grounds, and met with some people we knew.  From our balcony, we could see the little lake on the grounds, where we found Canada Geese and Lesser Scaups floating on the rippling water.

We were a bit puzzled by the profligate use of water on the property, being under the impression that California heavily regulates and conserves its water.  This resort had this big lake, multiple fountains, and vast golf courses and green lawns.  In the middle of a desert.  Go figure!

On the way back to our room, we passed the Rose Lawn, where the evening’s reception was planned.  You can see the staff had already started putting out chairs and food/drink stations.  The reception is the first event of the conference, and President’s Club members like ourselves get to mingle and meet the speakers.

Right then, it was about 72 degrees and very pleasant.  I was impressed by the beautiful, bare trees that lined the walkway.

We still had some time to sightsee, so we got in our rental car and took a ride around the area, and ended up on Highway 74, going south through the mountains.  We drove up and up the winding road, and stopped at a viewpoint.

The Coachella Valley and the winding road were pretty spectacular.  And so was the wind, which was blowing about 20 MPH.  So we headed back down to get ready for the reception.  That evening, it started to get colder, and the high winds were making being outdoors pretty uncomfortable.  I was able, however, to capture the beautiful sunset.

The speakers at the conference were just fantastic.  We got to meet Dinesh D’Souza, whose podcast is very popular (and listened-to by Hubby), and he was quite cordial.  He gave a fiery lecture on why we conservatives need to fight back against the Left which is trying to destroy our country from within.  We also heard from Sohrab Ahmari, Miranda Devine, Dr. Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale, and Andy Puzder, the former head of CKE Restaurants.  Their lectures were informative, and sometimes disturbing, as they described the nefarious ways the Deep Administrative State is essentially ruling the country without the consent of the governed.  To a person, though, they were optimistic that we can turn back the Leftist Tide if we put our minds to it.

After lunch on Wednesday, the conference ended.  On our stroll down the walkway back to check out in the lobby, I just had to take a photo of this sign on a post.  In my opinion, this sign shows what is distinctive about the state of California, which is known for some of the country’s wackiest regulations and labeling requirements.

Read that warning very carefully.  According to the State, you are literally taking your life in your hands at this resort, exposing yourself to all sorts of harmful substances.  Now, California is also known to be a bastion of the Abortion Death Cult, with its Medicaid program paying for anyone’s abortion who wants one.  Yet they are also warning women about coming into contact was all those substances that can cause “birth defects of other reproductive harm”.  Well, which is it?  Do they want women to have kids, or not?  Or both?  The Left has never been known to be coherent.

Our room was large, with a bathroom that had a separate toilet stall.  I got a kick out of the photos on the wall.

The Palm Springs area is well-known for its “Mid-century Modern” architecture (known by me as Sixties Shoddy), and these are photos of some representative homes.  Many celebrities built houses in this part of the desert, but we didn’t visit any.  

As we drove out for the last time, we drove down this beautiful drive.

By the time we left in the late afternoon, the weather had turned cooler, and the wind picked up.  We got to the airport around 5:30PM, and we could see the mountains shrouded in obvious rain clouds, and we knew that the desert was about to get drenched.

And our last sight in Palm Springs was just typical California.

Moon over the mountains, palm trees, and airplane…and the requisite wind turbines to destroy everyone’s nice view.  We were actually happy to bid goodbye to the Crazy State.  But then, when we returned to our own “crazy state” of Washington, it was 31 degrees!  The Seattle area had had snow during the day!