My friend Jamie was turning 50 she decided she wanted a weekend away to celebrate. She chose Palm Springs. She asked if I’d like to go and I’m always up for travel so I immediately said yes and booked my ticket. It was only a week after I booked my ticket that Jaelee reminded me I’d be missing her prom and a track meet. Dang it! I was so bummed. I was going to cancel but Greg talked me into going. He knows I love to travel and wanted me to be able to celebrate with my friend. He promised he’d take pictures and video at her track meet and get pictures at prom. So I decided to go.

We flew out on a Wednesday. No direct flights so we had a stop in Salt Lake. Jamie gets pretty bad motion sickness. I don’t think she was prepared for how bad it would be when flying. She’s flown before but something about this was different. She was miserable our entire flight from Salt Lake to Palm Springs. She had to keep her comfy on her face and keep her eyes closed to avoid throwing up.

Luckily once we arrived she was able to rally and feel a bit better. We got our rental car and headed to our AirBnB. It was only a 3 minute drive. It was really close to the airport. The AirBnb was nice. It had a pool and hot tub and cozy accommodations.

Jamie’s sister lives in San Fransisco and she met us in Palm Springs. Unfortunately she had severely sprained her ankle and couldn’t walk on it so she had a full boot on and in order to get around she was using a scooter. It limited what she was able to do.

After getting settled in we went and got some groceries for the 5 days we were going to be there. That was an adventure, ha! Christian is a vegan and couldn’t walk much. So Jamie and I were running around the grocery store trying to find things for her and bring them back to her so she could verify and check ingredients to see if it would work. By the time we were done there I was starving. We stopped at a Mexican restaurant next door and got some food for Jamie and I. Christian got a vegan pizza at the grocery store she was going to eat back at our place.

We thought about getting in the hot tub that night but the water was pretty cool and we were tired from travel so we went to bed.

The next day we planned to go Joshua Tree National Park. It was going to be the cooler of the days we were there so we thought it would be best. It was about a 40 minute drive away. When we got there we stopped at the Welcome Center and got some great information about places to stop that we wouldn’t need to hike much since Christian was limited in her mobility.
Joshua Tree Park was interesting. Honestly, there was not as many Joshua Trees as I thought there would be. I’ve seen more in Arizona. The rock formations and just the landscape was pretty cool. There was a cactus garden. Again, not what I expected but it was pretty cool. The cactus was very funky – just the way I like it.

We hit all the highlights the ranger told us about and by that time we were getting pretty hungry so after about 3 hours we decided we were done and went and got some lunch.

This was called the Skull, you can tell why.

Saw this in the restaurant.

Jamie loves bunnies and has many as pets.

Wind and solar is a very good idea here. It was very windy while we were there.

When we got back we hung out in and by the pool. It was so nice. A great afternoon.

Full moon!

Friday was Jamie’s birthday. She wanted to go downtown and walk around. We decided to go early in the morning before it was too hot. We found out that most places down there open at 9 so we slowly walked around for an hour before the stores opened. Christian didn’t want to use her scooter to walk around so she stayed back. Jamie and I spent hours down there walking around all the stores. Around lunch we went back and got Christian. We then went back downtown and lunch at this local place. The food was outstanding. Such a great meal. We all shared a bit and everything was fantastic.

I got this dress at a store for $17, everything in the store was $17. What a deal!

After lunch we went back to our AirBnb to hang out at the pool. We had plans to go back downtown for dinner that night. Jamie wanted to spend her birthday dinner somewhere with live music. We asked around and were told about a place that served seafood. She thought that was perfect.

Dinner was good but none of us were that hungry still from lunch so we just had a little bit to eat. The music was good but wasn’t the vibe we hoped for. It was blues and kinda slow – we’d hoped it would be a little more lively. After a bit we just decided to go back to our place and get in the hot tub.

Saturday we went back downtown for breakfast. It was good but I think we were so impressed with lunch the day before it just didn’t meet that level, especially at the price.

We didn’t stay downtown much and found ourselves back at our home base and in the pool.

We could see a rainbow circling the sun. I tried to get a picture of it through my sunglasses with my phone camera.

That night we went to a drag show. Christian had brought some fun make up so we all did rainbow eyes.

The whole time we were there we listened to K-Gay, ha!

This is where we had dinner. We loved their vibe and the food was good too.

This is our waiter. I sent this to Greg and told him he needed these shorts, LOL.

The drag show was pretty fun. I would say I’ve seen better in Boise. This seemed a little low budget.

Sunday we flew home, it was a long day. Christian was leaving earlier than us, so we dropped her off then took the rental car back. We all went to lunch in the airport – which is small. Then Christian flew off. Sadly, for Jamie and I we had hours before our plane left. And when that time came our flight was delayed, then pushed back up and then delayed again. We missed our connecting flight in Seattle despite running through the airport to get there in time. Jamie was more sick this time and felt awful from Palm Springs to Seattle. She collapsed on the floor and the staff asked if she needed medical assistance. A kind person gave her nausea medicine but it didn’t help. When we finally got on our flight to Boise from Seattle it is short but Jamie instantly got sick and started throwing up. Because they had to put us on a different flight we were stuck in middle seats away from each other so there was nothing I could do for her. She threw up the entire flight.

When we arrived I got her outside and had to go look for our luggage that had arrived hours earlier on our original flight at 11 at night. What an adventure! Greg picked us up and I was so happy to see him.

We had a good time but I don’t think Jamie will ever be flying again.