I was fortunate enough to have been staffed on a project

in San Diego, flying to/from each week in 1999 & 2000. 

While there, a co-worker suggested that I propose to

Ann Marie in Palm Springs, where we had not been

before.  We visited, rode the Palm Springs Aerial Tram

to the top of Mt. San Jacinto, I proposed, and she accepted.

We have many times since then.  We have come

to love the dry desert, and are constantly amazed by its

beauty in the spring, especially in Joshua Tree National

Park (JOTR / http://www.nps.gov/jotr/index.htm, and
http://www.stltoday.com/travel/stark-beautiful-empty-cactus-studded-joshua-tree-national-park-remains/article_4787d61f-a034-5388-80e4-e343140a6231.html ).

More on Mt. San Jacinto, and Saint Hyacinth (the Polish saint for whom the Spanish named the mountain):

- http://www.ci.san-jacinto.ca.us/explore/history.html

- http://www.sainthyacinth.com/oursaint.htm

We all love the family time together.  The kids love the visits to Palm Desert’s The Living Desert, which is part desert zoo and part desert arboretum.

They have an incredible variety of the plants and animals, only some of which are:  falcons, bighorn sheep (rams), Grevy’s Zebra, cheetah, fennec foxes (largest ears, by ratio, of all canines... the right one only sat up for two seconds, just long enough to take this photo!), Wild African Dogs (this one stood up, turned around, and laid back down in about three seconds, just long enough for these photos!), long-horn Ankole cattle (the only animals whose horns radiate heat away from the body)... and a desert oryx missing one of its two horns, making it a legitimate unicorn!

We also fed the giraffes!

And at the hotel, we learned that the “black ducks with white bills” are actually not ducks at all, but are American Coots, as described in this article - http://djringer.com/birding/2010/11/14/whats-that-small-black-duck-with-a-white-bill/ :

We also saw a rainbow atop Mt. San Jacinto, and this semi-blurred photo does not show its full beauty:

“Reflections in a Chevrolet Woody”

On a couple trips we have taken guided bike trips, which have given us a chance to see more of the desert up close.  We have seen the earth tilted up atop the San Andreas Fault, and have seen the crops stretch to the horizon (fed from underground, one of the world’s largest aquifers).

The Palm Springs Air Museum has an impressive collection of airplanes.

http://www.palmsprings.com/airmuseum/ .

When we go, we try to also visit a beach city before or after.  The drives between the two, especially when we take the mountain routes, are equally beautiful.

Palm Springs and Palm Desert are two neighboring cities, and one of seven or eight primary cities in the Coachella Valley (below is a map at the Living Desert), as seen in this relief map at The Living Desert.

In 2015, we took the kids to the top of Mt. San Jacinto, for their first time, riding the Palm Springs Aerial Tram.  It was great to visit the beautiful scenery high above the desert floor, at 8,516 feet.  The Tram is a “10 minute ride at the Valley Station - elevation 2,643 ft. and end at the Mountain Station - elevation 8,516 ft.”

Views from the tram ride up:

Views along the Discovery Trail:

Views from where we were engaged, looking back down on Palm Desert.

We saw some amazing clouds on our 2015 trip, including:

these cirrus clouds, which are composed of ice crystals from freezing water droplets...

and these lenticular / mountain clouds, “which form high above a mountain when a stream of high-level moist air rises asa it flows over a summit.  If there are several layers of moise air, piles of lenticular clouds are formed looking uncannily like ‘flying saucers.’”

[“An Instant Guide to Weather,” 1999; Eleanor Lawrence and Borin Ban Loon;  p. 58.

Some of our favorite photos, from over the years...