Desert life

Palm Springs is an interesting city. It's in the desert surrounded by dramatic wind propellors. And it has a vaguely Las Vegas characteristic - you know how you can be driving down a crowded street in Las Vegas with bright lights and energy vibrating from the casinos - when suddenly you're right next to 3 acres of desolate property filled with burned out grasses and dirty gravel. Palm Springs has those moments.
Every year we've come here, it seems to have grown another 30 miles.
We stay in one of those "gated" communities - where you drive up to the traffic control centre - have your credentials checked and then enormous gates open and let you in. You drive down endless streets that all look the same - with the green green grass of the golf course on both sides. When those gates clang shut, you're not sure whether to be happy or sad. This policed entrance seems to have been there for 30 years, so people must still feel that they need protection from the big bad world out there. When we were moving luggage, we parked a little off the designated area, and came close to getting a ticket from some official policeman or something!
It's very pretty! Every blade of grass seems to have been studied and probed and proper treatment administered. A cast of hundreds do this important work. The vistas are solidly and overwhelmingly green and lush. Trees are trimmed, hedges carefully managed, flowers lovingly tended. This could easily be B-roll for one of those web sites where you sign in to fashion your own neighborhood, family, and friends.
These gated communities are popular here. The natives assure us that there is virtually no crime in Palm Springs. But still, they are popular. The residents beyond the gates seem happy to pay for the policing, the formal lawns and gardens, and everything else that adds up to a fairly healthy monthly charge.
Palm Springs has the Bing Crosby bar and the Frank Sinatra bar, the Buddy Rogers Street, Dinah Shore Drive, and Date Palm Highway. Every shopping mall plays "White Christmas" and everyone shows you Bob Hope's house on the mountain. Americans are good at promoting their heroes, and Palm Springs especially promotes entertainment biggies because they picked out Las Vegas and Palm Springs and literally propelled them into existence. These were masterful moves.
But all this talk about Palm Springs is not the real story. The real story is the weather. While our homes back in Canada are inundated with cold cold cold and snow snow snow, we're on the golf course basking in warm sunshine and lush meadows!
The golf? Courses everywhere. Wanting your business. Offering this, that, and the other. Sometimes it seems as if there are more Canadians here than Americans. You're more likely to get partnered with a couple from Edmonton, than a couple from Los Angeles.
We're researching. Arizona is our next stop. We'll get back to you.