Palm Springs (plus one night in Denver)

---

In April I took a three-day trip to Palm Springs, which was a number of firsts for me. In getting there it was my first time flying from Milwaukee to Chicago to make a connection and it was the first time I have flown on a propeller plane (from LA to Palm Springs). The Milwaukee to Chicago flight is a pretty ridiculous. The two airports are 55 miles apart and the plane covers that distance at 7,000 feet in about 13 minutes. Our flight was actually late arriving in from Chicago but that was kind of funny. The gate agent made an announcement while we were waiting for our plane to arrive that it had just departed from Chicago (at this time it was already about 10 minutes after our scheduled departure time). Then people started to get irritated thinking that this meant our flight would be seriously delayed until they remembered that this actually meant that our plane would arrive in 13 minutes.

Following flights to Chicago and LA I boarded my first propeller plane for the 45-minute flight due east to Palm Springs. I never realized how loud it is inside planes like this and now I finally understand how it could be possible for someone to get airsickness. On our landing the winds were pretty strong in Palm Springs and as we descended to land it was like being on a 15-minute roller coaster.

When I arrived in Palm Springs I made my way to the hotel that turned out to be top notch. It was a really old but nicely maintained hotel called the Viceroy and as chance would have it to the day after I had checked out to leave the entire hotel was to play host to a GQ Magazine party. I guess this hotel was part of the VIP experience for the Coachella Music Festival that began on the last day of my stay in Palm Springs.

While I stayed in Palm Springs I mainly attended a few days of meetings for work, but I still found time to walk the streets a little and see some of the surrounding desert landscape. The most ridiculous part of the trip was the afternoon I took to drive really really small (50cc) quad bikes up and down the side of a sandy hill. I guess it was fun, but had the quads been about 5 times bigger it would have done a lot to make the experience more interesting.

After a few days it was time for me to leave Palm Springs. I had intended to stay the weekend with friends in LA, but the timing didn't work out as I had planned so instead I headed back home to Milwaukee via a connecting flight in Denver. Now, at this time the only clothing I had not checked on board the plane was a seersucker suit (which seemed to fit in decently in Palm Springs but maybe not so much in Denver or Milwaukee). Anyway, just as luck would have it, my flight out of Denver to Milwaukee was canceled and I was left to find my own accommodation for the night with, yes, only a seersucker suit (now for two days).

I thought to myself, this isn't so bad; I have always wanted to see Denver. So I tried to make the best of it. At this point I realized that the Denver airport is actually about 40 miles from the city of Denver and that at the time of night when I arrived it really wouldn't be feasible to rent a car, drive to Denver, find a hotel, tour the city (alone in seersucker), wake up early the next day, drive back to the airport, return the rental car, and fly back to Milwaukee (now via Chicago, again). So, I had to take the alternative - hang out at Bennigan's and stay the night at the airport Fairfield Inn. I suppose the moral of the story is that United Airlines is terrible and it always pays to bring a change of clothes with you on a plane especially if you are planning on wearing seersucker in the Rocky Mountains.

---

Comments

[Admirer]

Sweet threads
That suit does look sweet though