My hubby and I were recently trying to find a good place to take a few of the grand kids (ages 15, 13 & 7) for a long weekend during their spring break. We wanted something that was fairly close to home and that we could drive to, but different from the usual places we go. We ended up going to the Palm Springs area, which is pretty close - just a pesky mountain range dividing us. We've been there before for a convention for work, but this time, since we were on vacation and were out to enjoy the whole experience, we took the scenic route through the mountains. It was a beautiful weekend and a beautiful ride.
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| Driving up CA Hwy 74 |
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| Beautiful mountain views |
Now if you've ever just driven through the desert on I-10 and whizzed past the exits for Palm Desert, Indian Wells, Rancho Mirage and Palm Springs, thinking it was the end of the earth and hoping you got out of the dry harsh terrain alive, well you're missing out. It's really quite beautiful once you exit into the land of planned beauty. We were a bit nervous that our resort would not be very kid friendly and that we'd be shushing the kids and trying to make them act like adults the whole time. Now, don't get me wrong, they are great, well-behaved kids, but after all it was spring break and kids just wanna have fun (my hubby being included in the kid category!). Not to worry! The place was crawling with spring break families and our resort went out of it's way to be kid accommodating.
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| Koi pond at our resort |
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| Beautiful landscaping at our resort |
It was a great time and my recommendation for first timers like us would be to definitely take the Palm Springs Aerial Tram (Gondola) up to Mt. San Jacinto (elevation 8500'). It's a really fun ride up and down and the views from the top are amazing!! The gondola car rotates 360 degrees continuously on the ascent and decent.
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| Riding on the gondola |
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Looking up at San Jacinto Peak
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The second recommendation is to go spend a day at Joshua Tree National Park - but not in the summer due to the heat. We had a blast there and the 7 year old earned her Jr. Park Ranger Badge the day we went. By the time she took that pledge with the ranger at the end of the day, the whole family felt like they should get the badge. It was a ton of fun but she worked hard for that little plastic badge!
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| Some park views |
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| Climbing Boulders |
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| Some of the 2 million Joshua Trees |
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Larry Lizard followed me from home
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Looking down at Palm Springs
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OK, now for the not so fun stuff; traveling with Fibromyalgia can certainly be challenging and painful. I was a bit frustrated because I was supposed to get a steroid injection in that annoying bursitis hip of mine before we left, so that I could enjoy the hiking at Joshua Tree and the swimming and biking at the resort. As it turned out, there was some conflict with scheduling at the doc and I went sans shot. As I always do when we travel, I brought my yoga mat and did plenty of in-room stretching to ease the painful hip and FM muscle pain (my grand kids are used to seeing me in down dog, thank goodness). Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention my pillow collection came along for the journey too.
By the second day I had gotten into my groove of "working" the menus at the resort restaurants so that I could be sure the food was gluten free, and also friendly to my many food sensitivities. The key is to be vocal with the staff and ask lots of questions and make lots of special requests. Of course, I had plenty of healthy snacks packed too:) It still really irks me that there seems to be such a vast disregard for healthy or vegetarian options available out there:( So, to make a painful long story not sound painful, the trip was a ton of fun and my discomfort was fairly minimal and definitely worth it to make such wonderful family memories.
From my View From The Fog,
Deb
