Our air conditioning unit was working full force throughout the night. We had a mediocre breakfast of pre-packaged cups of oatmeal that was a bit bland and some pre-wrapped slices of banana bread. The breakfast options were evidently one of the first victims of covid protocols it would seem. It was enough to get us to lunch, though.
We drove to the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, a cable car that goes to the nearby mountain peak. Neither of us had ever done it (at least after the age of four), so it seemed as good a time as any to give it a go. It was a bit expensive at $25 per person, but it would have been more concerning if it was just $5. After all, we are at the mercy of some steel cables stretching thousands of feet up the side of a mountain. It was a little trippy passing over the towers as it would drop slightly and was a strange sensation. The cars also rotate 360º so that everyone eventually can look forward or backward or whatever direction people like to look. This helped prevent people from fighting and clustering in one area. After all, there’s still a pandemic happening, and nobody wants to be on top of each other in a confined space, even if it’s rotating.
It took about ten minutes to reach the top, which offered somewhat anticlimactic views of the barren mountain we’d just scaled. There are a few trails that we observed people embarking upon, but they didn’t appear to lead anywhere of interest, so we just went to a few different observation points. The temperature at the top was around 70º, making it about 35 degrees cooler than where we had come from.
We took a much emptier car back down to the hot desert below and ten minutes later we were struggling to adequately air condition my car. We stayed put back at the Sparrows for the remainder of the day. Somewhat surprisingly there were a lot of people lounging by the pool. While I understand the pool can be refreshing when it’s hot, there were a number of people just straight up lounging in the sun which was, as you might imagine, quite hot.
Misters were trying in vain to cool the area down. As we too lounged for a spell, we debated our options for dinner. Again, most places are closed, unless we were to go to some more low-brow places like Del Taco or Sherman’s Deli. We wanted some atmosphere for Nicole’s birthday so we decided to just stay at the Sparrows and split a burger, a charcuterie board, and some avocado toast. They had strung lights in a nice outdoor setting, and it was very quiet.
As we neared the completion of the dinner, we were offered some chocolate chip cookies, which had progressively gained a mythical reputation each time we heard about them. We decided to give them a go. They were a bit rich, but good.
Hopefully they were an adequate substitute for birthday cake for Nicole. They were served very hot, although they could have simply been sitting in the sun for a minute or two. For the rest of the evening we relaxed in our “backyard” patio and contemplated our next adventure.
passports & pepto bismol 