Staying cool in Palm Springs!

One might think that being in Palm Springs is cool in itself, a city with a laid-back feel and many retro examples of 50's and 60's architecture (some buildings having that Jetson's look about them!) In practice, the wise work hard to seek shelter from the heat when the sun gets going. Today, for instance, the thermometer hit one-hundred and seven degrees, at one point! Anyway, early doors, I went for reasonable walk along Indian and Palm Canyon Drives and took in some of the neat shops and buildings. I was particularly struck by McCormick's Exotic Car Auction, which had some timeless motors on display. Back at Las Brias, we ate breakfast in the Breakfast Room. Fortunately, the hotel was not fully occupied, as the densely packed concentration of tables in the room made the breakfast experience feel like a hybrid of 'musical chairs' and a 'ladies excuse me'! (More First-world problems!) Next, we headed for the Visitor Centre, situated near the Jerome Mountain Tramway. Needless to say, they plugged this attraction, but we resisted the sales pitch and decided instead, to drive to the Joshua Tree National Park; a journey of around one hour on I10 East. We were told that the Park covers an area of eight-hundred-thousand square metres, equivalent to a small State. It was already hot and it felt good to drive through the spectacular desert scenery of rocks and Joshua Tree forests, in our air-conditioned capsule.

Two hours later we exited the Park and headed for Cathedral City and its historic Mary Pickford Movie Theatre.

Arriving there, we were pleasantly surprised to discover free undercover parking and an imminent showing of  'The Intern'. Pat ordered 'spicy dogs', a bucket of Coke, and enough popcorn to render our house! We sat through the (pleasantly funny) film accompanied by our junk food bonanza, supported on an ingenious, cantilevered, junk food holder! It was still hot late into the afternoon, as we arrived back at the hotel. To round off the day, we went for an early bird special dinner at Kaisers ..... very nice!! A couple of tracks remind me of today's drive, the first by the Moody Blues, 'Tuesday Afternoon'; the second, which finally won out, 'Bo Diddley', by the man himself:

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