1.18.2009

thinking of less snowy times...

It's a snowy day in the K-dub (that and my knees feel like they are one misstep away from an embarrassing walking incident ala April 2007), so I decided it would be a good morning to finally blog about my trip to California in November.

My dad decided to celebrate his 60ith (wowza!) at my aunt and uncle's new property in LaQuinta (which will be known as Palm Springs from now on...there are way too many cities all crammed together to keep them all straight). My presence was requested and I obliged--you don't say no to the Old Silver Fox on his 60ith! Plus, it's been a long time since I've seen my aunt and uncle. Oh, and I had about a billion banked hours to use up. And it was California. In November. It was a tough sell.

Because flying and I get along so well, wouldn't you know I arrived on one of the only "rainy" days of the year. And by rainy I mean cloudy with a few drops of rain. Seriously, this would have been a nice summer day by our standards. But the people of Palm Springs were not happy. They don't enjoy the 5 rainy days they have each year (and, really, why would they...so many things are built to take advantage of the lack of rain--for example, the airport seemed more like an outdoor cafe than a traditional airport, complete with full size palm trees near the boarding area).

Anyway, the first thing I noticed as the plane descended into the Palm Springs area was all of the golf courses. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before. But the closer we got, the more I noticed that many of the golf courses were surrounded by houses and located in gated communities. Indeed, there were a lot of gated communities around (which gave the community psychologist/City employee in me a lot of think about...I'm still not sure if I think gated communities would be good or bad for a sense of community. I'm also not sure how, as a City employee, I would go about building community in a city full of gated communities. Luckily no one from the Palm Springs area is banging down my door to get me to work for them, so I have some time to figure it out). To my surprise (although I really shouldn't have been surprised), my aunt and uncle's place was in a gated community. To think that armed security was on site 24/7 was weird, and seemed really unnecessary, but I got over it.

My aunt and uncle's place.


The backyard where I spent A LOT of time, especially during the first half of my trip when my parents spent a lot of time golfing with my aunt and uncle.


The outside of their gated community.


The view when you exit their community...


I have to say, despite the fact that there was a heat wave while I was visiting, it was pretty exciting to be somewhere and not to ever have to wonder what the weather was going to be like. It was just a given that it would be sunny, clear, and 30. Loved it!

I also have to note how well landscaped/manicured everything is there. It's actually kind of scary. Everything is perfect...a little too perfect. Oh, and for the most part, they don't waste their time with eyesores like street lights. Instead they like to put light the palms. It looks very cool, but doesn't provide much light (which made the community psychologist/City worker in me wonder about safety issues and concerns).

I was also shocked that I heard more Spanish than English while I was out and about (most fliers were in Spanish and English). It was very cool and made me wish I spoke Spanish so that I could practice.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the trip for your viewing pleasure...

1 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Isn't your aunt and uncle's place where they filmed The Golden Girls?

2/02/2009 3:37 p.m.  

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