A Palm Springs Christmas (Part 2.1): The Ghost of Christmas Present

    In the first of our two weeks in Palm Springs, we spent more time outside than we had in the past two months back home. Day one of our trip was... Chaotic, to say the least. The night before we left we went to bed by 9 to wake up at 4:00am the next morning, and at the airport for 5:15 am. However, while we went to bed nice and early, there was very little sleep for us. We nearly immediately fell asleep, but, by midnight both of us had re-awoken. We tried to get back to sleep.... And tried... And tried. By 3:00 am, both of us had given up on our dreams of a good night's sleep and just started getting ready, and rapidly consuming caffeine. Eventually, we got to the airport, through security and customs, and were stopping for another coffee and breakfast at the airport's Starbucks. 

Once we were on the plane, Carl immediately fell asleep. Awaking about 15 minutes later, asking "have we taken off yet?", completely missing the city lights twinkling far below us. After a 3 hour and 2 minute flight, that felt much longer, but ended with us landing early, I was ready for some food. By the time we landed in the desert, due to our early flight, we ended up here and settled with plenty of time for lunch!

Our first day went past in a sleep-deprived blur. All I really remember is craving chips and queso, having lunch at a nearby Mexican restaurant, and going to bed so early my brother would make fun of me for it if we told him. However, our second day was our busiest of the week. We made breakfast at the house, then went for a hike at Tahquitz Canyon trail, picked up Chipotle for lunch, then walked around the local Marriott hotel, looking for birds. Not wild ones, but the ones the hotel kept on their grounds.  We took our hike at the perfect time that day. It wasn't all that busy, we found parking for the tank of a car we were driving fairly easily, and the weather was, as we described it, "a perfect Canadian summer day".

Since we were there in the winter, we thought it would be considered the wet season. As in desert climates, the winter marks an increase in precipitation; precipitation, which in most climates, would be the snow us Canadians are so familiar with. As such, the most exciting part of this hike, when we were looking was the magnificent waterfall at the end. 

However, we were wrong. And there was no waterfall. At the time this was very disappointing news as we paid $30 USD for no waterfalls. However, this was quickly forgotten about as we started the hike. It ended up being an excellent hike where we took so many lovely photos. 

When Carl was in Palm Springs last, he said that the earlier-mentioned hotel had several different kinds of birds in their lobby. When we were there, unfortunately, they had cleared out that area to make space for an indoor boat docking for their "Boat rides with Santa". 

But we hadn't time for that-- there were birds to find. 

Eventually, we came to the front water feature and that's where we found what we were looking for. And it was even better than we had imagined... They had baby flamingoes. 

That alone made the escapade well worth it-- and left us very hungry. So we tried to get into one of the onsite restaurants, only to find them all booked up for the night. After a few minutes of searching, we were struggling to find anything other than fast food. However, we were craving steaks and for the life of us, could not find an open and not-crazy-busy steakhouse within our self-imposed-deadline of 10 minutes away. After 5 attempts, we gave up and started towards a bistro we knew would have room. Only to discover a steakhouse in the same parking lot. 

And that parking lot steakhouse ended up being the highlight of our trip. We both got delicious filet mignons and shared a side of potatoes baked in gouda cheese with a sprinkling of bacon. Both of which are now being considered for our far-in-the-future wedding dinner. For desert, we shared a hot-chocolate lava cake. 

The highlight of the meal was by far the steak. It was perfectly cooked, wonderfully tender, and excellently seasoned. The only bad thing was the price tag. The low point was Carl's coffee, which he described as "perfectly mediocre". While this was our best restaurant, it was also the most expensive.

On day three we ignited my newfound love for Krispy Kreme's original glazed donuts, but mostly stayed at the house. We grabbed a quick breakfast and some groceries before heading back to the house to spend the afternoon reading poolside. 

Eventually, we went inside and made dinner with the fresh groceries from that morning. We made chicken with a teriyaki glaze that we'd found at the store, with some Arborio rice, oven roasted cauliflower and broccoli, and some steamed carrots with a bit of salt and butter. Overall, it came out well. I got really lucky because the oven was a bit tricky. The temperature was a dial and it wasn't exactly clear on what the temperature was and when it was ready. Surprisingly, based on that information, the chicken came out perfectly. I simply put the 10 chicken thighs on a baking sheet for 40 minutes at about 400 degrees. As is the problem with chicken thighs, they were pretty fatty and a little small for my boyfriend. On the up-side, they were perfectly sized for me, and the fat lends a lot of flavour to the meat. Despite these small complaints, dinner turned out fantastically. 

Thursday was much of the same from the previous day. We spent a lot of the day eating Krispy Kreme and reading, but this time by the fire instead of the pool. That night we had dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant in Palm Desert. This was our low point of food for the week. While the food itself was fine enough, the waitress made us feel super rushed the entire time. In fact, our reservation was for 5:30 pm, and we were walking out by 6 pm. We were also sat right beside another couple having dinner despite the fact the restaurant was near empty, even during the dinner rush at 6:00 pm. Due to this, the restaurant felt incredibly loud, and it was right along a busy road, so in the dark the lights from the cars speeding past just added to the feeling of being very overwhelmed. All in all, not fun. 

On Friday, Carl's uncle and Grandmother came to the house to stay and visit for Christmas, so a lot of our time over the next few days was with them. On Saturday, we made our Christmas dinner of oven-roasted chicken and potatoes, and steamed green beans; once again struggling with the oven temperature. For boxing day, we went on a tour of Joshua Tree National park, which turned out much chillier than expected. Largely, due to the wind and higher elevation, because the sun was still shining.

Thus marks the end of week one of our California Christmas. Overall, it was a lot of fun, filled with lots of time outside, tonnes of good food, and a lovely few days of reading. The highlight, activity-wise, was probably all the reading by the fire we got to do. The low-point, was the audio-tour of Joshua Tree. I would've liked to have done a bit more hiking while we were there, but all the interesting hikes we could've done were crowded beyond belief. Additionally, the "tour" part wasn't all that interesting, and I wouldn't recommend it. Even for $8 USD. For next week, we have plans of hiking a few of the trails around Palm Desert and some more time with family to ring in the New Year.