LA and Palm Springs

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We are now in Los Angeles until the end of our trip and before we board the Southwest Chief train save for a two-night stay in Palm Springs.



Travel tip: Many museums in LA are open on different days- some are open on Monday such as the Huntingdon and Norton Simon. Others are open from Tuesday. It is also helpful to plan visits for those in the same area. The Huntingdon with its fabulous gardens and galleries is in Pasadena as is the Norton Simon- home of 20^th century European and American art, 17^th-19^th century European art and Asian galleries. It pays to go on free docent tours that some of the museums provide.



We travelled Route 10 towards Palm Springs and very soon the landscape and vegetation changed signaling that we were in the desert. Huge fields of wind turbines came into view. The other “huge” was in Cabazon which boasts a very snazzy outlet mall and something even better to our minds- several enormous dinosaur statues near the service road and on the Morongo Indian reservation.



This was the same site used in” Pee-Wee’s Great Adventure”.



The pace in Palm Springs seems to be a bit slower which suited us. It is a town that celebrates the best examples of 50’s and 60’s architecture and for $5 you can purchase a self-guided tour of some of these areas. Some however are in gated communities such as Bob Hope’s and Steve McQueen’s homes and the road is closed to the public. There are plenty of restaurants in Palm Springs all vying for your dollar and lots of happy hour specials (internet searches and local tourist newspapers will inform you of these food and refreshment happy hours).There is even mid-week cabaret catering to all tastes.



The Air Museum and the Palm Springs Museum of Art are both worth a visit the former housing lots of planes from both the World War 2 European and Pacific theatres and the latter with excellent temporary exhibits as well as a wonderful permanent collection.



We took the Aerial Tramway over 8000 feet up to San Jacinto State Park and caught a sunset view over the desert. The jury is still out however on whether this $24 ride (per person) was worth it.

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