Hotel California: Mitchell

Scenes from Club Intrawest in Palm Desert:

Medjool Dates, famous in Palm Springs:After a long 10-hour flight from Samoa, we arrived in Los Angeles, California. We like Los Angeles, but we are not staying there. We are staying in a city an hour and a half away called Palm Desert. We chose to stay there because there is a time-share there called Club Intrawest, and we are members so we are allowed to stay there.

So after we got out of the airport, we took a shuttle bus to a car rental place, since we were driving to Palm Desert ourselves. There were lots of cool cars, but in the end we got a white Chevrolet; I forget what the model is right now.

After our long drive, we arrived at Club Intrawest, our time-share. Since we were very tired from a long day of traveling (driving to the airport in Samoa, flying from Samoa to California and driving to Palm Desert), we rested for the rest of the day and swam in the pool and relaxed. Club Intrawest is a really nice place and we are all enjoying it here.

Most days, we just hung around the pool and did nothing much, but one day we went to a zoo about the desert and its animals, called “The Living Desert.” It had information on many different deserts around the world, and a large collection of plants and animals that live in the desert. We saw many cacti, other plants, and animals including giraffes, wolves, coyotes, ostrich, bobcat, mountain lion, cercal, tortoises, bat-eared fox, zebra and warthog. We even got to feed a giraffe and see a presentation about owls. The zoo was a really cool place because it was just like a desert!

After lounging around for most of our days here, we went all the way to a place called Irvine, a suburb near Anaheim. We went all the way there to see mom’s friend Julia and her family. They have two sons close in age to me and Jackson. At their house, we ate lunch and then decided to go to the beach. It was a nice place called Laguna Beach, and lots of people were there. When we got there we tried to swim, but the waves were way too big so we went to a cove a little out of the way because the waves were smaller and easier to go for a swim. Also, Sebastien and Justin, the two kids we met, had these boogie boards that were really fun to use.

We also went to this market called the Palm Springs Street Fair. It was pretty cool and it had lots of interesting items like medjool dates, jewellry, and paintings. However, we have been going to markets all around the world, so it was a little boring, but my mom and dad liked it.

Last but not least, we went to a water park called “Knott’s Soak City Water Park” and it was great! It had lots of rides, like ones with tubes, and some without, and it even had a big pool shaped like a river and it had a current so you could just float along with your tube. However, the best ride there was definitely a ride called the “Pacific Spin.” It was a really fun water slide. It is the scariest ride there, six storeys high, and I was impressed that even my mom went down it.

Tomrrow morning, we will get up very early to go to Hollywood and Beverly Hills because Jackson really wants to, but later that day we will be leaving for Vancouver, Canada. It's cool that we arrive back in Canada on July 1st, Canada Day! I really liked California though, it has lots of cool places.

Everyone poses with this statue of Sonny Bono, former mayor of Palm Springs, so we did too:

Living Desert landscapes:

Jackrabbit outside our unit every morning:

Feeding giraffes at The Living Desert zoo - we called this guy Gene Simmons:

Knott's Soak City Waterpark:

Ducks outside our unit, looking for snacks:

The Real Housewives of Palm Desert

Okay, I’ve been given a good talking to from my sister Susan in that last comment. Specifically, buck up, stop whining about the trip being almost over, and keep writing. So here is another blog post from the scrubby desert of California. I will be okay and I am absolutely looking forward to seeing my family, most of whom I only see about every two years. It ain’t over yet.

We’re in Palm Desert, about an hour and a half from Los Angeles. This represents a level of luxury we have not been accustomed to over the last year (with a few minor exceptions here and there). All in all, a good way to return to North America for sure. Several swimming pools, hot tubs, a movie theatre, games room for the kids, tennis courts and a basketball court (you’d have to play at midnight, it’s way too hot to move that much), and, of course, a stunning golf course that is good to simply look at – no need to actually play on it. I’m not sure I would want to live in a place like this, however. Almost as soon as we exited the airport, I felt bombarded by billboards advertising weight loss programs, plastic surgery clinics, and cosmetic institutes. Makes a girl feel a wee bit insecure.

I realize, in contrast, how low maintenance I really am. Or maybe I became that way over this past year – but no, I think I always have been low maintenance more or less. All I need, I recently boasted to Ted, is a decent mattress and hot running water at least every other day and I’m golden. No problems. I can really go anywhere and I’m proud of that. It was actually in Samoa I had this revelation. We didn't have hot water every day but it was fine. He was reading someone’s discarded Car and Driver magazine and, without looking up, said “Hmm, yeah, okay, I guess”. And then I just waltzed away and did my own thing. You see? I don’t even need my husband to listen to me when I’m speaking. Now THAT is seriously low maintenance.

Back to Palm Desert. We had a good visit with my friend Julia (originally from Saskatoon like me), her husband Richard, and their two boys Sebastien and Justin. Julia lives in Orange County but she is most definitely not one of the real housewives. She is as down to earth and grounded as a person can be. For example, she has no fake body parts unlike many of the women I see around the pool here :) We had lunch at their place, then drove to nearby Laguna Beach and the boys got along great. Sebastien and Justin loaned their boogie boards to our guys and they all had fun in the big surf. We may have to move to be near a warm ocean someday – our boys have come to love oceans, beaches and hurling themselves into the waves.

Julia, Richard, Sebastien & Justin:

Laguna Beach:

I have to share a funny story. I was lying by the pool with the Count. I like to say that, I’m reading The Count of Monte Cristo that I snagged at a book exchange table back in Australia. It’s a monster at over 900 pages. And that is the small print edition. My friend Kerry tells me her copy has 1400 pages. The Arms Akimbo book club is reading this in memory of our time in France and we’re going to discuss it at our neighbourhood pub in August. Can’t wait.

Anyway, this woman on the lounge next to me compliments me on the little sundress that I had worn into the pool area over my swimsuit. I am feeling like I really don’t want to engage in conversation with her because she has unnaturally white teeth, huge fake breasts, and what looks to me like a perfect spray-on tan. She asks me, where did I get it? Did I get it at the Outlet Mall? No, I got it at a beach in Thailand actually. Really? She seems mildly amused by this. They have shops right on the beach? Well, kind of, I explain. Actually a guy just walks up and down the beach with an armful of dresses and he lays them out on the sand and you pick one you like. Really? She says again. We’ve been talking for all of 30 seconds and she has exhausted her vocabulary already. She wants to know how much it cost me, as she has heard things are inexpensive there. Well, let’s see. The guy wanted 500 Baht but I think I paid 300 Baht, which I tell her is about ten dollars. Ten dollars! Really!! Oh I wish I could afford a trip to Thailand, she says, that dress is just so cute! Not to sound nasty but I’m thinking, hmmm, let’s do the math here. Add up those implants (thousands no doubt), factor in your teeth whitening dental bills (hundreds possibly), and your fitness membership and your expensive clothes and those superfluous rings on your fingers and what kind of car do you drive again? Probably not a Corolla, probably a BMW or something. A car is just a tool to get you from Point A to Point B. It’s not supposed to be a fashion accessory but that’s just the low maintenance inner me speaking again.

I guess I’m sounding nasty so I’ll just stop. Point being she could very easily afford a trip to Thailand – she could even afford to live there for an extended time with no income in all likelihood, simply by downgrading her lifestyle. But if she’s wants to visit Thailand only for the shopping, then I’m glad she thinks she can’t afford it.

On a whim, I tell her about the Little Brown Dress project. This is a blog I stumbled onto several years back about a woman who decided to make a statement against consumerism by wearing the same brown dress for one full year. Check it out – she wrote a great journal about this time in her life and I checked in regularly all through that year. I loved it. I tell her if she wore the same dress for one full year she would save a bundle of cash and could go just about anywhere she wanted. She of the unnatural rack just shakes her head and chuckles. Why don’t people believe this?

Okay, so what else have we been up to in Palm Desert? I'll let one of our kids tell you. Mitchell has a post up his sleeve about California that he has offered to write. Please. Go for it, my boy. The blog continues. Stay with us.

Back on North American soil

We're back on North American soil, as of a few hours ago. I just want to say, if I had to pick the best airline from the many airlines we've now flown, I would vote Air New Zealand as hands-down the best. I already felt that way after our flights from Sydney to Auckland and then Auckland to Samoa. But get this - I was a bit emotional on the plane ride and doesn't a flight attendant show up at my seat, crouch down and offer me a flute of champagne on a tray (!) That is service.

Why upset, you ask? Isn't it obvious? It's over folks. We will still have a great time here at the Intrawest resort in Palm Desert - I will see my old high school friend Julia and meet her family - and I will see my Mom and most of my many siblings that are spread throughout Western Canada. We will have an entire month to traverse Canada and parts of the U.S. on the way back to Ottawa, seeing our own country, as we should. But just speaking for myself, I am really drawn to the far-away places, the overseas travel. And I don't know when I will get to do that again. I was a bit concerned that I kept pressing Lenny Kravitz' "Fly Away" repeatedly on my iPod during the course of this recent plane ride. If I'm feeling I need to fly away already, what will I feel like a few months from now?

A quick update on Stephanie, the German girl. On Monday, the German embassy was at her hospital room. I think the hotel owner took her bags from Young Henry, fished out her passport, and got the embassy involved. I guess once the embassy has her full name, it's a simple matter to track down next of kin. We also ran into the med student staying at the hotel just as we were leaving for the airport. He said he dropped in to visit her and to read her chart and he feels she's getting better and should be back in Germany within 5 days. Thank God!