Monday, October 25, 2021
This morning, after finally falling back to sleep in the wee hours, I woke up at 7:30am soaked in sweat but feeling much better. Apparently whatever interloper had upset my own personal ecosystem had been fought off during a great battle over the past four to five hours, and I had the very damp sheets to prove it. During our normal morning routine, I managed to finally complete the journal entry from Saturday. We absolutely love writing these travelogues, but because we ourselves want to remember much of the details of our trips, they take a bit of time to write. Lori has had to write pretty much all of them since I started my PhD program. Now that I am finally ABD (all but dissertation), I certainly still have copious amounts of research and writing to do to move forward with my dissertation proposal, but I am taking this week off from academic writing to write for pleasure, which I sorely miss. Plus, I am relieving Lori of the majority of the writing duties for this year, and I know she appreciates it. So that we can complete the travelogue entries close to the time our trip ends, we are simultaneously writing up different days right now. You will hear a lot of her voice describing tomorrow’s details.
We left the apartment at 11:00 am. There are several wind farms all over this area. We soon discovered how much sense this makes, as the wind here is quite strong, and on at least a couple of days since we arrived, we have heard it howling, whipping, and ripping around outside. We are certainly used to seeing the majestic huge white new-age windmills in Indiana—the road from Indy to Chicago is full of them—but they are even more striking when seen dotting the arid desert floor with a mountainous backdrop. Lori wanted to take some pictures of a grouping of windmills not far from the Airbnb, so we drove as close as we could get so she could get some great shots.
Today had been set aside to explore the city of Palm Springs, that famous desert oasis. I had been to Palm Springs once before, while on tour with Dreamgirls in 1987. All I remember about it is that it was so hot I thought my face would melt off. I also recall going to a mall, and all the cars in the parking lot left divots in the asphalt when they left because it was too hot for the paving surface to stay firm. In other words, for a person like me, who HATES to be hot, Palm Springs equaled hell. Fortunately, the temperatures here in this area in late October are much more tolerable…the temps for most of our trip have been quite delightful in fact. Today in Palm Springs it was about 76 degrees when we arrived, and there was a slight breeze, which was perfect.
We started our “Palm Springs Day” with a reservation for our relatively new GW tradition, an escape room. In case you are new to the Girls Weekend travelogues, Lori and I suck at escape rooms. We failed in 2015 in Richmond, VA; in 2016 in St. Augustine, FL; and in 2018 in Providence, RI. This has been our first attempt since then. We also did one in Indy with our families…fail. Lori has done a couple others at other times with other people…fail. I did one as a team building activity with my work colleagues, and while it was recorded as a successful escape, there was a glitch with one of the locks, so they gave us more time, but in my opinion they gave us more time than we had spent working on the broken lock. They also just about talked us through solving a couple of puzzles almost step by step over the intercom. So, while I will take the W in that situation, Lori and I both really wanted to get out of one of these things on our own.
If ever you are in Palm springs, the Aerial Tramway should definitely be added to your itinerary. It was an awe-inspiring experience and afforded truly wonderful views of the mountainous terrain. The Tramway, which was built in the Chino Canyon on the north edge of Palm Springs, was the dream of Francis Crocker, an electrical engineer who first envisioned a tramway during a trip to the area in 1935. Sweating down in the valley, he longed to “go up [to the top of Mount San Jacinta] where it’s nice and cool”. Over the next 30 years, working with the assistance of desert pioneer and co-manager of the famed Palm Springs Desert Inn, O. Earl Coffman, Crocker’s dream became an actual plan. The plan had to be shelved and re-started a few times, but in 1945 a new tram bill was passed, and Governor Earl Warren signed the measure creating the Mount San Jacinto Winter Park Authority. Coffman was named the Authority’s first chairman and Crocker was named the first secretary.
One of the original tram cars
Funds were raised through the sale of $8.15 million in private revenue bonds, and by 1950 technicians were working on designs for the tramway. The land for the Valley Station and parking lots was donated, and no public funds were used for either the construction or operation of the Tramway. After another delay caused by the Korean War, the ambitious project finally began to take form in July 1961. Construction of the Tramway was an engineering challenge, and the project was soon labeled the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” The work involved using helicopters to erect four of the five supporting towers. Yes Gads!!
On Monday, June 10, 1963, the first of two 80-passenger tramway cars were removed from their packing crates and suspended from the main track of the cables. The second tramway car was unpacked and added the next day. The anticipated date of completion, Aug. 3, was delayed and the first inaugural trip was made on Sept. 12, 1963. The first tower is the only one that can be reached by road. The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway was designated an historical engineering landmark in 1983 because of the 23,000 helicopter missions that were flown hauling men and equipment for the construction of four of the five towers and the 35,000 square foot Mountain Station.
view of the valley from ascending tram
My favorite part of this story is that Crocker was able to ride the Tramway numerous times and fellow passengers often would receive a narration from him as they rode up to “where it was nice and cool.” So many of these farsighted folks (such as the poor Integratron dude) don’t get to see their dreams completed, but fortunately that was not the case for Francis Crocker, who died in 1992. In 1998, the Tramway announced that it was embarking on an ambitious modernization program that would see the construction and installation of new cars and an update of its facilities. Beginning in September 2000, passengers first rode the world’s largest rotating tramcars, which were shipped in from Switzerland.
descending tram car arriving at station
These tramway cars are so cool! The passengers stand in the completely round car with windows all around. After it leaves one station, the floor makes two full revolutions during the 11 minutes it takes to reach the other station. This happens going up and going down. The weather for our tramway ride was a bit challenging, as there were a lot of clouds and a rather stark temperature drop down to 39 degrees when we debarked at the top. We were going to hike a bit but weren’t dressed for it. So instead, we went and had a delicious lunch at Peaks Restaurant—housemade tomato basil soup for both of us, followed by a Caesar salad for Lori and a green salad with blue cheese and strawberry vinaigrette for me. Next, we found the two small movie theaters in the mountain station and watched both of the (very severely dated) movies that gave all of the information I have written here, and then braved the chill and spitting mist to go take some wonderful pictures from the observation deck. By the time we decided to board the tram to go back down it was pouring rain and freezing. We did have jackets with us, but nothing to really protect us from this kind of weather. As we traveled back down the rain slowly faded and the temperature slowly climbed. A great experience very much worth the price of the ticket.
It was a little damp down in the valley when we exited the tram, but whatever rain had fallen down there had stopped, and it was blessedly warmer, probably around 68 degrees or so. We drove into downtown Palm Springs and easily found a parking spot on the street. The parking was free, which shocked us a bit, but for which we were grateful. We found a great little clothing store that was SO “us”, and each of us bought a couple of items. Then we went up the street to the Free People store. This is a clothing line that both Lori and I just love, and in which we always enjoy browsing. Lori purchased a gorgeous sweater, but I managed to resist, as there was not much on the sale rack. We both needed to find a bathroom by this time, so we walked up a couple of blocks to by far the fanciest Starbucks either of us had ever seen. It’s huge and had contraptions in there that my local stores certainly don’t have. Correspondingly, they had menu items we don’t have in Indy, including ice cream!! They make some blended drinks with the ice cream. They’re a test store, and the only store currently that carries ice cream. Who knew? We bought a couple of coffees, decided to call it a day, and went back to the car.
ascending tram car photographed from descending car we were in
It was close to 9:00pm when we got back to the apartment, where we watched episodes six and seven of Squid Game. My God, what a show. It’s repulsively fascinating, and SO violent. Finally, after a very long and fulfilling day, we went to bed, still riding the high from our escape room victory.
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