The Beautiful Palm Springs!

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Wednesday 6th August
We woke up reasonably early, and acting on a recommendation from Mike at reception, we made our way to the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway; this is two revolving Swiss-built cable cars, each holding 80 passengers, and are one of Palm Springs most popular attractions. The ride was 11mins long and took us up 6000 feet over spectacular scenery to the mountain station in the Mount San Jacinto Wilderness State Park.

The temperature changed dramatically during the journey (part of the reason we decided to go up) - 110 degrees at the bottom, but a very cool and refreshing 70 degrees at the top. This was important, as at the top were 54 miles of hiking trails - all of which Amy wanted to try! ha,ha! Having talked her down, we set off on a trail that took us to Wellman's Divide (8 miles round trip); this was a lovely walk, although a lack of wildlife (we did see a racoon at the very start) and views (mostly rocks and trees) made us feel slightly deflated. However, this was soon forgotten as we reached the valley view peak, where we had a wonderful view of Palm Springs and the valley below for miles around (as Mike had promised).

Suitably satisfied with our 4 hour hike and said scenic views, we headed back down via the cable car to the sweltering heat of the valley floor - back to the norm temperature wise! We drove back to the hotel, arriving at 4.30ish, and leapt straight into the pool to cool off - boy did we need that!

After a refreshing dip in the pool, we headed for a local outlet mall in the early evening - what a mistake on my part. We had 1 and a half hours to look around, and spent 1 hour 15 mins in the Adidas shop as Amy went Running Gear crazy!!! She bought so much stuff ( with my credit card!) that the store manager declared the best takings for the last 6 months. Then Rip Curl took a battering, as Amy got into her stride. I managed to return with 2 consolation T-Shirts.

To celebrate Amy's shopping spree, we ended the evening in a traditional Mexican restaurant recommended to us by one of the shop assistants in downtown Palm Springs. The food was lovely, as was the beer, and we ended the night back in the hotel room planning for Thursday.

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