Promptly at 6am our friends Pete and Kevin picked us up from the loft and we all headed to the San Francisco airport. We had only carry on bags, so we were able to use the electronic check-in and go right to the gate. The flight was completely booked so we were only able to get four middle seats, one right in front of the other. It was only a one hour flight, so it wasn't a big deal. We arrived just before 9am to warm air and clear blue skies. After picking up the rental car we drove into town and stopped for breakfast.

On the way to the Palm Springs Tram we stopped at a huge windmill farm, just off Interstate 10. There were hundreds of them, some spinning, others stopped. There was a train station near where we were taking pictures, and two freight trains passed us, from opposite directions. We walked through a hole in a chain linked fence to get a better view of the windmills and started to get a closer look at the desert that was all around us. A few dozen pictures later we headed back onto the road. (And that cable crossing marker post was bent before Randy drove anywhere near it!)

Our second adventure of the day was the Palm Springs Tram itself. It's a 30+ person capacity gondola that goes to the top of one of the nearby mountains. The cool thing about it is that it's round and the floor rotates as the gondola ascends so you get to see in every direction. As we went past each tower, the car swayed from side to side, making everyone yelp. Kind of disconcerting at first, but it was fun. At the top of the mountain the temperature was about 50° and there was snow on the ground! We walked around for a bit and took pictures. There was a tree filled valley on one side of the tram station and a patio overlooking Palm Springs on the other. Then we hopped back on the tram back down to the bottom.

Then we drove back into town looking for lunch. Hamburger Mary's looked fun, so we parked and went in, luckily getting a table by the sidewalk right away. The hostess (and her enormous breasts) were a riot; she seemed to know everyone who walked in. We had a good view of the main drag through town, so we could get a sense of things. We decided that the majority of the town was made up of gay men, senior citizens and bikers. Definitely made for some fun people watching.

After lunch we went to Moorten's Botanical Gardens. This was a large private garden that is now open to the public. We saw lots of huge columnar cactus reaching for the sky. It was filled with quite a variety of plants, with wonderful, mature, specimen plants. Rick was in heaven. Afterwards we headed to the hotel and checked in. Our hotel was the "L Horizon", a cute little hotel with 20 bungalows surrounding a big lawn and pool. Very nice and quiet. We went out and hung out at the pool for a while, then headed in to shower before dinner.

A cab took us down to the center of town where we had a drink and walked towards the restaurant where we had dinner reservations. Once we got there, however, it didn't look that great so we decided to find something else. Just down the block was the Blue Coyote, which had great Southwestern food. We had dinner and a few drinks, then walked back down the strip looking at all the people, stopping along the way for some frozen yogurt at "Penguins Yogurt". We hailed a cab back to the hotel (stopping along the way for some margerita mix, of course). At the hotel we went out and soaked in the jacuzzi for a bit, then headed to our rooms. We were asleep before 10pm, it had been a busy day!