Wednesday, December 03, 2003

Changing our minds about the desert


Mail From Home... Posted by Hello

Computer access on the road is not confined to Starbucks hot spots. If you can park near enough to one, you can use your tailgate as a portal on the internet. I am in Rancho Mirage, CA in the above picture.
If Yogi Berra did say of a New York night spot that no one goes there anymore; it's too crowded, I know how he felt.

This California desert is anything but deserted.

Refugees from crowded places jam together here along the irrigated strips making it a more crowded place than the one they deserted.
Next it will be not dry and not warm here.

We may not want to winter here every year.

Unless something grabs us, we will not buy this year but will rent in one or two areas to see if we think we would like it.

More about that later.

First Impressions of Palm Springs (and second)

Today my travels take me to Palm Springs where:
1) little old ladies clad in golden metallic Lexus honk impatiently as you pause in one of the three exit lanes to mail your house payment back to Indiana.
2) their wealth affords the residents greening of their plots, greener than Indiana in spring (which I am told is greener than Ireland).
3) aside from an occasional jogger or dog walker, the only people you see outside are the brown skinned servants of the estates doing their jobs.
4) I have the realization that it is crasser here than in Las Vegas.
But:

1) Judy opines that the silver haired ladies in the golden Lexus figure their time on earth is short and don't want to spend any of it waiting behind me in a parking lot.

2) Developers found a way to green their pockets with retirement money knowing "if you build it, they will come".
3) These relatively lowly paid workers are my friends and benefactors. They are, after all, paying my social security. 4) It's not too bad here. I was just cranky - probably an effect of the drive here from the coast being tougher than I had expected.


Fans. Posted by Hello

The drive from Long Beach to Palm Springs crosses the breadth of the L. A. basin. An 11 a.m. start gets you there at 1 p.m. When you get there, you need to relax.

I've forgotten the mileage but it is probably 120 miles or so of freeway driving. 605 to 91 to 60 to 10. When you live in it, you don't see the vastness of urban sprawl that is L. A. I've been away long enough to see it with new eyes. It is not for me.

To me the signal of the end of L. A. is the wind farms on I-10. Prevailing winds venturi through the mountain pass and countless high tech wind driven turbines generate electricity. I've heard that this is more costly than the power made by burning things but, knowing that figures don't lie but liars can figure, my instincts tell me that these wind farms are a good thing. OK, I don't suppose birds like flying through this mountain pass any more but these whirli-rigs signal my escape from L. A. and that’s a good thing.

On an earlier trip, I passed these thousands of spinning blades then stopped at an outlet mall down the road a bit at the edge of super suburbia. Hats blew away and shoppers squinted eyes and clutched bags.

"Maybe they should turn off those fans.", I said. But my voice was lost in the wind.