Yup. It's an oven. Our rental car has an external temperature display, and today it read 98 degrees Fahrenheit at 9:30 am. So, of course, the logical thing would be to visit an outdoor botanical garden called "The Living Desert". Where you can wander for miles. On foot. With no shade. In 100+ degree heat. And look at exhibits containing desert animals who are being sensible and hiding from view in shady, cool burrows.
Actually, it was pretty cool...they had an impressive display in the cactus garden and we dropped by the rehabilitation centre for injured desert animals, where an abandoned desert fox pup was busy ignoring about 20 store-bought toys and chasing a piece of crumpled paper around his pen instead. The botanical garden also sells plants and trees to the locals and has an enormous selection of cactus species to choose from. The citizens of Palm Springs have obviously been taking advantage of the offerings. This entire area is a testament to the well-heeled residents' ongoing, obsessive struggle against nature and the elements. It's bizarre to see so many perfectly manicured green lawns and golf courses in the middle of the desert. And in Rancho Mirage (where our hotel is located), just outside of Palm Springs, the city has sunk a fortune into landscaping. They've even got floral displays on the highway medians. The stretch between Frank Sinatra Drive and Bob Hope Avenue is particularly impressive :)
The stretch of desert just to the west of Palm Springs is a complete contrast. No landscaping visible here, but you will find a seemingly endless sea of wind turbines. There are 3647 of them, to be exact. Back in the 1980s, the State of California offered tax incentives to local residents if they invested in wind-generated energy. For $25,000 you could "buy" a turbine and get a $50,000 tax credit. Pretty sweet. Apparently, the high income earners in Palm Springs were all over this idea and within 10 years, thousands of the 90 metre-high towers were erected. They've since halted any new tower additions, but the Palm Springs turbines currently provide 2% of all electricity on the south-west American grid.
To escape the heat, Sarah and I headed up the Aerial Tramway at Mount San Jacinto. From the base just outside of Palm Springs, the tram cars go up about 1800 metres to the summit, where the temperature drops about 30 degrees F. The trams cars are designed to rotate 360 degrees during the journey, which is somewhat disorienting, but gives you a spectacular view of the valley and surrounding mountains.
We were lucky to arrive just as a ranger-guided nature hike was starting. Lucky, because I'm convinced we would have been lost within minutes. The trails all criss-cross up there, and don't seem to be terribly well-marked. And "Ranger Art" did a really nice job of pointing out interesting info concerning the flora and fauna. The tree in the pic is a Jeffrey's Pine; he had us all sniff the bark, which smells like butterscotch.
It was a shock to the system back at the bottom of the mountain. Our car had been baking in the parking lot for three hours and required maximum application of air conditioning. We'd saved Joshua Tree National Monument for later in the day because I wanted to take photos when the light was better. It's about 90 minutes from Palm Springs to the park entrance and we arrived around 4:30. No crowds at all, which was really nice. Just us and a whole lot of Joshua Trees, which we learned are not trees at all, but a type of shrub.
We decided to try the "Hidden Valley" hike, a 1.5 mile loop that takes you through a box canyon used by cattle rustlers in the 1800s to hide stolen herds. The rock formations and vegetation are incredible, you feel like you're on the set of a classic Western. And the late afternoon sun gave everything a golden glow. In addition, the desert creatures were making an appearance as dusk approached - fortunately, we didn't spot any of the rattlesnakes the signs kept warning us about. But we did get to see lots of lizards and bunnies :)Lots more pics of Joshua Tree on my Flickr page.
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