June 21, 2005: Palm Springs Trip Day 4
	June 19, 2005: Palm Springs Trip Day 2
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At Greg's House

It's Monday morning, and Fred and I are up before anyone else. We are relaxing on the verandah, and Fred is taking a few pictures of Greg's backyard. He's been intrigued by the segmented reeds that are growing alongside Greg's house, and he's also found some flowers that he thought worth a picture.

I think I've described Greg's backyard to you before in this album. Actually, there is very little "yard," per se. Almost all of the back part of Greg's property is taken up by the swimming pool. It is not really a swimming pool, either. It looks and seems more like a small pond, with an irregular border, a couple of waterfalls, a lot of natural-looking rock and a barefoot bar at one end. Probably the most interesting aspect of it is that there is not a ledge as you would see around most pools; the gunite has been poured so that when you walk into the pool, you are walking down a slope- almost as if you were at the beach. All in all, it looks like something Disney would have built.

In the back corner of the property, there is a rock fountain, a seating area and even a good-sized telescope mounted on a rotating platform for night viewing.

At the Paseo

Once Will and Brad and Greg were all up, and Mike had fixed them some breakfast, the four of us (Fred, myself, Brad and Will) thought that we would go off for a while and leave Greg in peace for a change. We also had the ulterior motive of wanting to shop for a gift for Greg, in thanks for allowing us all to visit. The plan was to go to the upscale shopping area known as "The Paseo," which is kind of like Palm Springs' Rodeo Drive or Las Olas Boulevard. So, towards lunchtime, we borrowed Greg's Honda Element and headed off.

Getting to the Paseo was pretty simple- yet another drive down Route 111, this time to Palm Desert. We found a parking place right on the Paseo and got out to walk around.

Within the Gardens, there was a lot to see. Fred was interested in all the fountains he saw; inside the Gardens there was a pretty ceramic pool (note the guest taking a swim). There were also some unusual fountains outside the Gardens on El Paseo, including one reminiscent of barrel cactus and one that used multiple levels and shapes. In addition to the fountains, there was a very well-done mural painted on the end of one of the buildings.

Scattered throughout the interior gardens were three or four plaster statues of bighorn sheep, and each one was brightly painted with one motif or another. They were reminiscent of the buffalo I had seen a year ago in Buffalo, New York, or the buffalo I would see next year in Custer, South Dakota. I have put thumbnails for a couple of the pictures that Fred took of them below, along with a couple of pictures of us sitting near the ceramic fountain. Just click on these thumbnails to view the full-size images:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

We had lunch at the Gardens and then we browsed through some of the shops along El Paseo. We did achieve our goal for the afternoon, which was to find a gift for Greg. We ran across a leather guest book and we left it in a jewelry store to have a brass plate engraved and affixed to the front. (We picked it up a day later and presented it to Greg when Will and Brad left to return to Austin.)

At Greg's House

We got back to Greg's after lunch, and decided to spend a couple of hours just relaxing in the pool and hanging out. We planned to go take the Palm Springs Tramway a bit later on, but not right now when it was so warm.

While Will was in the pool and the rest of us were hanging out inside, Fred took some pictures around the pool area. Below are thumbnails and descriptions for these pictures; just click on the thumbnail to view the full-size image:

This view of the pool area looks west towards the mountains. You can see that the pool is far from typical; all irregular rocks and shapes. Just beyond the umbrella table, you can see that the "edge" of the water is more like the slope of a beach than a typical pool.

That's Will Hamilton in the pool in this view looking in the opposite direction. The wing of Greg's house that contains the two separate guest suites is directly in back; you can see the double doors to one suite; the door to the other is in the shade off the verandah. The barefoot bar is in the foreground (people in the pool can swim up to the ledge and sit on submerged seats and interact with the people in the bar area who are not in the water). Behind Will is one of the two waterfalls; this larger one has a spa inside it; when the waterfall is on, the spa is behind the falls.

Here's a good view of the plantings along the back side of the house. The verandah is directly in front. Inside the house, to the left, is the kitchen/dining area and the TV lounge, and then, working your way towards the camera, is the small formal living room and then, just to the camera's left is the master bedroom suite.

Another view of the pool area at the back side of the house.

Here is the verandah seating area, and now you can see the door to the left-hand casita. There is an outdoor preparation counter with a little sink and a fridge. Greg has installed misters around the edge of the verandah overhang, and you can see that they are putting out some cooling mist. The way the overhang is built, and because of the mountains to the west, the verandah is almost always in shade, which makes it a good place to congregate outside, even in summer.

The verandah, with the entrance to the main house at left. I like the way Greg has decorated this area; it is a great place to sit and relax.

Palm Springs Tramway

Getting to the Palm Springs Tramway

Well, it seems as if Greg's house is just way too well located; nothing of interest is hard to get to (and most of them are not very far, either). We left Greg's house about three, drove out of his neighborhood to Palm Canyon Drive and went north for less than a mile. Then we followed the signs west on Tramway Road to the parking area for the Palm Springs Tramway.

Parking Area Aerial View

The Palm Springs Tramway was the vision of a young electrical engineer, Francis Crocker. In 1935, while on a trip to Banning, California, about ten miles west of the tramway site, he looked at the snow still on top of Mt. San Jacinto (10,000 feet high) and wished he were up there, and the idea of some sort of mechanized way to the top was born. Crocker did some initial design work and began to lobby local and state authorities to have a tramway, much like the ski lifts already in use in Europe and much of the West, built to the top of the mountain.

Mountain Station Aerial View

By dint of his enthusiasm and hard work, Governor Earl Warren of California signed a bill establishing the Tramway Authority in 1945. Almost ten years of design work followed, with construction beginning after the end of the Korean War and completed in 1963. A modernization program was completed in 2000.

The Tramway rises over 5500 feet from the valley station to the mountain station, which is at an altitude of aproximately 9000 feet. On their ascent, the cars travel over more than 12,000 linear feet of cable. By 2000, over two million people have ascended to the mountain station, and almost that same number have taken the return trip down. Some few individuals each year choose to hike back down the mountains, although the trails do not lead back to the valley station but rather down to the trail system above Palm Springs.

We arrived at the Valley Station about three-thirty in the afternoon; since it was June, we would still have plenty of light even though the temperature had moderated some. We paused in the parking lot for a group picture before heading into the Valley Station to buy our tickets. We had about a twenty-minute wait since the cars were in use, so I took the time to go to the boarding platform and have my first look at the tramway and its cables heading up to the first tower off in the distance. That first tower is the tallest of the five at over 225 feet. Shortly, the descending car arrived, its passengers disembarked, and we were able to board the tramway car.

The Ride to Mountain Station

Once we boarded the car (there were about twelve people), we waited for a moment until the car at Mountain Station had also loaded and then both cars started out- ours up and the other one down. In the view at left, taken just after we started out, you can see where we are headed.

On the way up, both Fred and I took a number of pictures and movies. In them, you can see the five towers that we crossed over, you can see the landscape change as we ascend and you can see the other car pass us on its way down. There is not much that can be said of the pictures individually, so you should just click on the thumbnails of the ones that interest you and you will be able to view the full-size image. See you at Mountain Station!

Here are the movies, and you can watch them with the players below:

Here are the pictures:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

At Mountain Station

The trip up to Mountain Station took about fifteen or twenty minutes. As you saw from the pictures in the previous section, the views got more and more spectacular as we ascended.

Mountain Station is a boomerang-shaped complex of buildings with the ubiquitous gift shop, restaurant (actually, a buffet that looked good) and some exhibits. Outside, as you can see in the picture at right, there is a seating area where you can enjoy your meal or drink or whatever while you marvel at the views (and, at this time in June, the coolness).

At one end of the building, up on the second level, there is an observation deck from which you can see almost 360 degrees all around yourself. We spent quite a bit of time here on the observation platform drinking in the views and taking pictures- of the views and each other.

In the movie that you can watch with the player at left, you can take a virtual tour of the observation deck and see the same views that we saw walking around there.

One of the best views from the observation platform is the view of the entire length of the tramway- from just a few hundred feet below Mountain Station all the way down to Valley Station. There are actually five towers, although you can only see three of them in this picture. One of them is hidden from view by a ridgeline pretty far down, and the other is just below Mountain Station and behind the trees at the left of the picture.

As we did on the way up, we took quite a few pictures from this vantage point. The first group of similar pictures we took of each other here on the observation platform. You know who we all are by now, so just click on the thumbnails to view the full-size images:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

This next group of pictures are the views of the Coachella Valley and the Desert Cities from the vantage point of Mt. San Jacinto peak. Again, to view the full-size image, just click on its thumbnail:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Just before we left the observation platform to do some walking through the forest here at the top of Mt. San Jacinto, I took one more movie panorama to try to show you a 360-degree view from the platform, and you can watch it with the player at right.

We are going to go walking around now for a while through the forest here behind and below Mountain Station.

A Walk Around Mt. San Jacinto Peak

After spending some time on the observation platform, we went out the back of the Mountain Station building to the trailhead for a nature trail that winds its way through the forest here at the top of Mt. San Jacinto and which the information we got in the station indicated would take us to some excellent viewpoints. Exiting the building, we walked down a switchback ramp until we got to the valley floor and we headed off on the trail.

Right away there were some excellent opportunities for a couple of movies. For example, I wanted to capture on film our starting off on the trail; you can watch this movie with the left-hand player, below. A short distance further on, Fred wanted a film of us goofing around on a trail bridge, and you can watch that movie with the right-hand player below:

The trail was very pleasant to follow, and led from the station across the small valley to the ridgeline to the south, where it curved along the ridgeline and back along the edge of the ridge to the station. From the southern ridgeline all the way back to the station there were always great views. But the walk through the forest was neat, too. For one thing, there was a pretty little stream winding its way across the forest floor, and we crossed it a number of times. Fred was also intrigued by the size of some of some of the huge pine trees; this picture of me standing in front of one will give you an idea of just how big they were. Looking up, they seemed sometimes just to rise forever. They weren't sequoias, but some of them seemed that big.

The forest floor was pretty much devoid of underbrush, which is common in pine forests, but Fred did find the unusual floral specimen or two as we walked along. Eventually, the trail began to rise a bit, and we knew we were approaching the southern ridge line. The trail actually continues down off Mt. San Jacinto, connecting up with the trail system above Palm Springs, but we weren't going that far. Just before we turned to walk more east along the top of the ridge, Will took this picture of us at the ridgeline. Here is the view from the ridgeline towards the the San Jacinto Mountains above Palm Springs.

We climbed up a bit onto the crest of the ridge so we could get some better views. As you can see by looking back towards the forest trail, we really didn't have to climb very high but, even so, there were excellent views of the valley. Below are a couple of thumbnails for pictures we took of each other here on the ridgeline; to view the full-size image, just click on the thumbnail:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

As we turned along the ridgeline, the Coachella Valley and the city of Palm Springs came back into view. Fred did an interest set of comparison shots. The first one, taken with no zoom, is the view towards Palm Springs. The companion picture was taken in exactly the same spot and looking in the same direction, but this time, he set his camera on maximum zoom.

We walked along the ridgeline for a ways and then came to a particularly tall peak right at the edge of the ridge, and I was sure that it would offer great views of the Coachella Valley and the desert cities below. So I left the guys temporarily and scrambled up the rocks to get to the very top of the peak; that's me at the top in the picture at right.

As I suspected, the view of the Coachella Valley from here was quite a sight; as a bonus, I could also get an excellent view of the tramway as well. I could also see Fred down below taking the picture that I've included at right.

This spot was really, really beautiful and for a while I was all alone up here, barely able to hear the other guys or really any noise at all. I thought that while I had the peak to myself, I'd film the vista from here, and you can watch my movie with the player at left.

While I was off by myself, Fred was occupied trying to find a songbird in the trees, and he made a movie of his effort that you can watch with the player at right. Brad also came over to the peak and starting climbing on the rocks below me.

Eventually, both Fred and Will also came over to the peak, and started climbing up to join me. As he got up close to me, Fred took some pictures of the valley vistas and of me on the top of the peak. I've put thumbnails for these pictures below; to view each full-size image, just click on its thumbnail:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

That last picture might make you think that I am one of those busy people who always has to be connected and talking to everyone no matter where he is or what he's doing- but I'm not. I just remember that when I was here in November, and hiking around in the hills above Palm Springs, I quite naturally left my cell phone at Ralph's house. When I was late getting down, Greg asked me why I hadn't taken it with me so I could have called. I'd never thought about it, I guess because I didn't think I'd get a signal all the way up in the hills. It was then that I learned something about the range of your average cell tower; I learned that if it weren't for regulations, you could actually use your cell phone on airplanes, as long as you had line of sight to a tower and weren't more than five miles or so away. And I was a heck of a lot closer than five miles up in the hills.

So today, I brought my phone with me to see if I would have service up here. Sure enough, I did, so I took the opportunity to call my sister from the peak on which I was standing. It was more to impress her than anything else. Fred captured some of my conversation with Judy on film, and Judy later found it amazing that she could watch a film of me talking to her from such a remote spot. You can watch his movie of me talking with her using the player at left.

This is probably more detail than you might want, but when Fred and I are traveling, we sometimes forget to reset the clocks in our cameras to the local time, and so the timestamps that are recorded with the pictures are sometimes off. Most often, I have to estimate what the actual time was, particular when Fred's camera time doesn't agree with mine. But when things like this phone conversation happen, I am in luck. On this particular trip, it seemed as if I had not reset my camera clock at all, because just from memory it seemed as if the timestamps on all my pictures were Central time instead of Pacific time- but I wasn't positive. And Fred's timestamps seemed to be in between. All this made it difficult to sequence the pictures for the album.

But with this sequence of pictures, I was in luck. I had one easy clue and one harder one to exactly calibrate both my camera clock and Fred's. First off (and I'm ashamed to admit that this was the SECOND thought I had) you can see my watch in the fourth picture above. I never reset it when I travel, and so it timestamps that picture as having been taken at 7:47pm, Central Daylight Time, or 5:47pm here in Palm Springs. All I had to do was look at the timestamp on Fred's picture, 6:30pm, and I could figure out just exactly how far off his timestamps were from mine. The way I actually chose, though, was harder. I just went and looked up my cellphone bill, found the call to my sister in the itemized list and checked the time! The call began at 5:44pm local time, according to the bill, and so that checked out. Now, for the rest of the trip I can sequence the pictures (at least until Fred screws me up by resetting his camera clock to the correct time).

We spent some time here at the peak, and then headed back to Mountain Station for our trip back down to the valley. On the way, we ran across some interesting trees that we'd read about in the station. They are a variety of pine whose very unusual bark smells just like cinnamon when you rub it.

When we got back to Mountain Station we only had a short wait before being able to get onto the other tram car for the return trip. It was just as much fun going down as it was coming up, and the pictures were just as good. Fred took a short movie of our descent, and you can watch it with the player at right. He also took some very nice pictures on the way. I've put thumbnails for these pictures below; to view the full-size image, just click on the thumbnail.

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

At the bottom, we disembarked from the tram, and then walked around a bit near the station. There was a short little nature trail that we followed, and it offered a good view of the tramway route. There was also a viewing platform with a telescope, but in the fading light we didn't make use of it.

The tramway ride was something I've always wanted to do, and it was just as great an outing as I thought it would be. But now, it was time to return to Greg's house and get ready for dinner.

Greg's House and Dinner

We got back to Greg's house about seven. Mike was fixing some dinner, so we had time to relax. Fred took one picture of the pool in twilight and another of the rest of us having drinks and munching some chips and salsa while relaxing on the verandah.

It had been another great day in paradise. Fred and I were looking forward to some more hiking that we planned to do tomorrow while Greg and the guys went off and did their own thing.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	June 21, 2005: Palm Springs Trip Day 4
	June 19, 2005: Palm Springs Trip Day 2
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