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<blockquote data-quote="BillB" data-source="post: 1002286" data-attributes="member: 9985"><p>Our son and daughter in law’s plans for the next day took us to Idyllwild, a village in the mountains south of Cathedral City. We left in mid-morning, and we thoroughly enjoyed the climb up the mountains (in their car, I hasten to add). There were plenty of turnouts where cars could pull over to take in the view of the cities, the desert and the mountains where we had stood and looked in the opposite direction the previous day. We didn’t stop on the way up as our son said that the light would be better for landscape pictures on the way down.</p><p></p><p>Idyllwild, it turned out, was a small town, or a large village if you prefer, surrounded by pine trees and, further away, craggy mountain peaks . You could have put it down in the Alps or in the Vermont mountains and it would look totally at home. In the winter months its main business is skiing and visitors come from miles around to spend a day or a week on the pistes.</p><p></p><p>We parked the car and went on for some exploration. We had a browse through many of the shops, many of whom had a variety of semiprecious stones and fossils on sale. Our eldest son has been collecting fossils for some time now and he treated himself to an interesting specimen whose name now escapes me. Our daughter in law designs and makes jewellery which they used to sell in a shop in their previous town of Boulder Creek. Now they no longer have the shop so they are setting up an online outlet. D-i-l examined the stones on display with a professional eye, ending up buying some which she felt she could do something with.</p><p></p><p>We stopped off in several more little stores before we hit on a place for lunch which turned out to be a very pleasant interlude as not only was the staff friendly but the restaurant had a model railway running around the walls almost at ceiling height. It was based on the old Canadian Pacific locos and kept us entertained for quite a while. Lunch was pretty good too, and so was the Californian wine Jackie and I ordered to accompany it.</p><p></p><p>After lunch we hit some more of the small stores, bought a couple of items that would serve as gifts at Christmas and thoroughly enjoyed the time spent browsing as some of the outlets were distinctly eccentric.</p><p></p><p>Later in the afternoon we stopped for a coffee and sat around chatting outside a little café. Then we made our way back to the car and began the downhill slope towards home, stopping off at a couple of points to take some photos. Our son had been right, with the sun lower in the sky the shadows were beginning to lengthen across the desert below us and the landscape was being bathed in a golden light that looked beautiful through a camera’s lens.</p><p></p><p>We had been planning that evening to go out to a restaurant that our son recommended but when we got home their biggest dog seemed to be poorly. He had jumped into the pool the previous day and seemed to have misjudged his leap as he banged into the wall of the Jacuzzi that is built into the side of the pool. He had seemed to be okay then, but he was quite listless when we arrived home, not even rising to greet us as he usually did, although the other two smaller dogs were as mad as ever.</p><p></p><p>By the time the dinner bell was sounding in our stomachs our son and d-i-l had decided that they would stay at home that evening to keep an eye on the dog. So just Jackie, myself and Older Son went out to the place they had recommended, Bontas, which was run by an Argentinian and his Austrian wife (or it might have been an Austrian with his Argentinian wife, I forget which). Wienerschnitzel was the choice for each of us, and extremely good they were. Accompanied by a bottle of Californian wine and followed by coffee the meal was very, very satisfying. When it came time to pay I got out my credit card but our son put cash down on the bill. I looked at him and he smilingly told us that Younger Son had given him the money to pay the bill. He said that although they wouldn’t be with us that evening they had intended to treat us to dinner before the dog damaged himself so they were going to pay, even if they couldn’t be with us in person. A kind and generous gesture, I thought.</p><p></p><p>When we got home later in the evening we found the dog to be a little subdued, but appeared to be improving. Next morning he was well on his way back to being his normal bouncy self.</p><p></p><p>The next day would be our last in Cathedral City so Younger Son proposed riding the impressively named Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, which is American for a cable car. We had an early lunch before we left and arrived at the departure station for the cable car before 2 p.m.</p><p></p><p>There weren’t too many people waiting so we stood in line with a good expectation of getting aboard the next car to depart, which turned out to be an accurate assessment. I’m invariably impressed with American methods of crowd control at their most popular attractions and this was no exception. The first comers were the first to board and there was no chance for anybody to push in or jump the queue.</p><p></p><p>When the car departed with us on board I was pleasantly surprised to see that the floor revolved inside the car so that every passenger got a full 360 degree view as we moved upward. And the view was definitely spectacular, taking in the adjacent mountains as well as Palm Springs, the desert beyond and the mountains beyond that.</p><p></p><p>We disembarked at the top station and set off for the peak, which fortunately was only a couple of hundred feet above us. From up there we could see the valley that lay to the south of the mountain we were standing on. Once more desert and scrubland stretched away before us and we were all trying to get that one magic picture that escapes everyone else. Mostly in vain on my part, I reluctantly concede.</p><p></p><p>Once again at height I began to feel somewhat odd, a sign that the dreaded altitude sickness had struck. I bore with it as I knew I wouldn’t be up there more than another hour or so.</p><p></p><p>We explored the summit as far as we safely could then went back to the station to have a coffee in the cafeteria. After that we browsed the gift shop and had a look at a small exhibit of mountain photography before boarding the car for the descent. My altitude sickness vanished rapidly as we went down, as it usually does.</p><p></p><p>I was treating the whole family that evening to dinner at a restaurant called the Chop House in Palm Springs. Our eldest had posted a picture on Facebook a week before we got there of a steak he had been served there. To say it was enormous is understating the case so I was looking forward to a good meal.</p><p></p><p>And it turned out to be a very good meal. The steaks were tender and full of flavour and even I, a dedicated carnivore, was pushing it towards the end of the meal.</p><p></p><p>Jackie and I had done most of our packing between our return from the aerial tramway and leaving for the restaurant so back home after dinner we were poring over a road map as we planned a detour to Death Valley on our way back to Aptos. We had reserved a room at the Furnace Creek Lodge for a few nights so that we could tour the whole area – after all, who knows if we’ll ever get back there again.</p><p></p><p>So it was that the next morning we bade farewell to our boys and daughter in law, and headed off in the direction of Death Valley.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="BillB, post: 1002286, member: 9985"] Our son and daughter in law’s plans for the next day took us to Idyllwild, a village in the mountains south of Cathedral City. We left in mid-morning, and we thoroughly enjoyed the climb up the mountains (in their car, I hasten to add). There were plenty of turnouts where cars could pull over to take in the view of the cities, the desert and the mountains where we had stood and looked in the opposite direction the previous day. We didn’t stop on the way up as our son said that the light would be better for landscape pictures on the way down. Idyllwild, it turned out, was a small town, or a large village if you prefer, surrounded by pine trees and, further away, craggy mountain peaks . You could have put it down in the Alps or in the Vermont mountains and it would look totally at home. In the winter months its main business is skiing and visitors come from miles around to spend a day or a week on the pistes. We parked the car and went on for some exploration. We had a browse through many of the shops, many of whom had a variety of semiprecious stones and fossils on sale. Our eldest son has been collecting fossils for some time now and he treated himself to an interesting specimen whose name now escapes me. Our daughter in law designs and makes jewellery which they used to sell in a shop in their previous town of Boulder Creek. Now they no longer have the shop so they are setting up an online outlet. D-i-l examined the stones on display with a professional eye, ending up buying some which she felt she could do something with. We stopped off in several more little stores before we hit on a place for lunch which turned out to be a very pleasant interlude as not only was the staff friendly but the restaurant had a model railway running around the walls almost at ceiling height. It was based on the old Canadian Pacific locos and kept us entertained for quite a while. Lunch was pretty good too, and so was the Californian wine Jackie and I ordered to accompany it. After lunch we hit some more of the small stores, bought a couple of items that would serve as gifts at Christmas and thoroughly enjoyed the time spent browsing as some of the outlets were distinctly eccentric. Later in the afternoon we stopped for a coffee and sat around chatting outside a little café. Then we made our way back to the car and began the downhill slope towards home, stopping off at a couple of points to take some photos. Our son had been right, with the sun lower in the sky the shadows were beginning to lengthen across the desert below us and the landscape was being bathed in a golden light that looked beautiful through a camera’s lens. We had been planning that evening to go out to a restaurant that our son recommended but when we got home their biggest dog seemed to be poorly. He had jumped into the pool the previous day and seemed to have misjudged his leap as he banged into the wall of the Jacuzzi that is built into the side of the pool. He had seemed to be okay then, but he was quite listless when we arrived home, not even rising to greet us as he usually did, although the other two smaller dogs were as mad as ever. By the time the dinner bell was sounding in our stomachs our son and d-i-l had decided that they would stay at home that evening to keep an eye on the dog. So just Jackie, myself and Older Son went out to the place they had recommended, Bontas, which was run by an Argentinian and his Austrian wife (or it might have been an Austrian with his Argentinian wife, I forget which). Wienerschnitzel was the choice for each of us, and extremely good they were. Accompanied by a bottle of Californian wine and followed by coffee the meal was very, very satisfying. When it came time to pay I got out my credit card but our son put cash down on the bill. I looked at him and he smilingly told us that Younger Son had given him the money to pay the bill. He said that although they wouldn’t be with us that evening they had intended to treat us to dinner before the dog damaged himself so they were going to pay, even if they couldn’t be with us in person. A kind and generous gesture, I thought. When we got home later in the evening we found the dog to be a little subdued, but appeared to be improving. Next morning he was well on his way back to being his normal bouncy self. The next day would be our last in Cathedral City so Younger Son proposed riding the impressively named Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, which is American for a cable car. We had an early lunch before we left and arrived at the departure station for the cable car before 2 p.m. There weren’t too many people waiting so we stood in line with a good expectation of getting aboard the next car to depart, which turned out to be an accurate assessment. I’m invariably impressed with American methods of crowd control at their most popular attractions and this was no exception. The first comers were the first to board and there was no chance for anybody to push in or jump the queue. When the car departed with us on board I was pleasantly surprised to see that the floor revolved inside the car so that every passenger got a full 360 degree view as we moved upward. And the view was definitely spectacular, taking in the adjacent mountains as well as Palm Springs, the desert beyond and the mountains beyond that. We disembarked at the top station and set off for the peak, which fortunately was only a couple of hundred feet above us. From up there we could see the valley that lay to the south of the mountain we were standing on. Once more desert and scrubland stretched away before us and we were all trying to get that one magic picture that escapes everyone else. Mostly in vain on my part, I reluctantly concede. Once again at height I began to feel somewhat odd, a sign that the dreaded altitude sickness had struck. I bore with it as I knew I wouldn’t be up there more than another hour or so. We explored the summit as far as we safely could then went back to the station to have a coffee in the cafeteria. After that we browsed the gift shop and had a look at a small exhibit of mountain photography before boarding the car for the descent. My altitude sickness vanished rapidly as we went down, as it usually does. I was treating the whole family that evening to dinner at a restaurant called the Chop House in Palm Springs. Our eldest had posted a picture on Facebook a week before we got there of a steak he had been served there. To say it was enormous is understating the case so I was looking forward to a good meal. And it turned out to be a very good meal. The steaks were tender and full of flavour and even I, a dedicated carnivore, was pushing it towards the end of the meal. Jackie and I had done most of our packing between our return from the aerial tramway and leaving for the restaurant so back home after dinner we were poring over a road map as we planned a detour to Death Valley on our way back to Aptos. We had reserved a room at the Furnace Creek Lodge for a few nights so that we could tour the whole area – after all, who knows if we’ll ever get back there again. So it was that the next morning we bade farewell to our boys and daughter in law, and headed off in the direction of Death Valley. [/QUOTE]
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