Desert Sojourn

I sometimes think you have to be a shape-shifter, a time traveler and certainly imbued yourself with as adjustable attitude if you want to survive this pandemic in the desert. Many of the trappings of present-day Palm Springs are gone now, at least for this season. What’s left behind is a hint of the trappings of a desert community before money and status and the afternoon cocktail hour clouded the desert sands.

Life in the desert is different now. The pandemic has caused the regular winter tourist season to grind to an agonizingly slow crawl. Nothing is as it used to be. Normally each weekend is filled with carefully planned events, activities, and festivals that cater to a diverse audience of snow-birds, visitors, weekenders and topic-specific folks.

But not this season. Like Minnesota and most other states, California has restricted patronage in restaurants, clubs, gyms and other gathering spots.

The list of annual events that have been canceled, delayed or postponed until future notice is remarkable. These are hallmark events that have long been identified with Palm Springs and the entire Coachella Valley during the winter months.

Events like the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Modernism Week, Coachella, Stagecoach, the White and Diana (LGBTQ) Parties will not happen this year. Closer to home, large social gatherings like our own Indian Canyon Neighborhood parties have been canceled.

I tried to capture a sense of what it was like this summer back in Minnesota in the year of COVID-19. I started with ‘The Great Escape’ in describing our leaving Palm Springs for Minnesota as the pandemic was closing down most of California and starting to affect the rest of the country.

Then I shared my experiences ‘In the Year ofthe Pandemic’ to explain how Sharon and I were coping with the myriad of changes thrust upon us by common sense and government regulations. All of which morphed into a number of discovered alternatives to life as we used to know it. Like listening for the birds in a forest. More reading. More writing. More art projects. Now we’re trying to do the same thing here in the desert; searching for alternatives, substitutes and other options for a world turned upside down.

Instead of using our social membership at the Saguaro Hotel, Sharon is hosting friends in our pool for daily workouts. I have taken to walking the berm, biking and hiking mountain trails instead of the hotel machines.

Locally, most of the theaters are still shut down and offer no time frame for reopening. Therefore, I am concentrating on finishing up newest novel (my twelfth) and marketing it. I also have a number of plays that need to be tightened up, edited with a sharp-edged pencil and packaged for marketing (hopefully) next summer.

Neither Sharon nor I have been in a restaurant for the last nine months. Our dinner engagements are now strictly confined to parties of four, usually outdoors under a space heater and with proper social distancing. Instead of Sharon’s past parties for twenty, these intimate gatherings bring more security, calm and great conversation for all of us.

Strangely enough, I am sensing a permanent change of some of our routines with little to no residual sadness attached. Outdoor coffee salons  ‘Playdates’ blog certainly beat indoor coffee shops. Dinner with friends on the porch can equal or surpass restaurants, exercising outdoors can be just as rigorous as indoor gyms. The list goes on and on.

There are still some silly things from the past that I might miss a little:

Sneaking a peek

Brian and me and a couple of libations

Hiking mountain trails with Melanie

Spending time with the grandkids

There are a lot of the ‘old normal routines’ that I sorely miss and want to return to. But there are also a number of newly discovered alternatives that have become even more attractive.

Hopefully, I can go with the best of both categories and improve my day-to-day routine along the way.

The Great Escape

It probably began with the Iliad, the Odyssey, and other Greek tales of adventure. History tells us that Homer wrote about one of these first epic journeys. As a budding writer of western novels, I was aware of the fact that in western fiction, there are only three or four main story lines. One of these is the epic journey or the great trek. Hollywood captured these formula stories with two classic westerns: ‘Red River’ and ‘The Searchers.’

Later on, there were movies like ‘Escape from New York’ and ‘Road Warrior’ that followed this same story formula. Sharon and I recently lived our own epic journey ripe with a deadly virus trailing us cross-country, closed or seemingly haunted motels, nearly empty roadways and miles upon miles of late winter drabness. It was a forced road trip for two very asphalt-allergic folks.

Like the rest of the world, Palm Springs experienced the COVID-19 epidemic/pandemic recently. Rumors exploded along with misinformation, misunderstanding, and panic in the toilet paper aisle. All the OMG folks were going crazy and driving those around them in the same direction. Hotels, motels, restaurants, and worse yet, nightclubs were all ordered closed down.

Our situation on the home front was tempered by the fact that over a four-week period, Sharon had experienced three bouts of a serious sinus infection that she just couldn’t shake. With every new round of antibiotics came an upset stomach and digestive interruptions. She was tired and her immune system compromised. It wasn’t safe for us to board an airplane and go anywhere. Yet I wasn’t about to stay in Palm Springs until May 1st as we had originally planned to do.

Compounding the situation was a ‘lock-down’ and ‘Stay in place’ order from city government in Palm Springs. That was quickly followed by a similar ‘stay in place’ order for the city of Los Angeles and finally on March 19th, a statewide ‘lock down’ for all of California.

Just about everything was closed down. Coffee shops, retail shops, golf courses, any and all gathering spots, were now out of reach. The Canadians, probably 30-40 percent of our winter population, were rushing to get back north before their borders closed. Snowbirds were leaving early and Palm Springs was fast becoming a ghost town.

The last straw for me was when they closed the library and then my exercise room at the Saguaro, our local hip hotel. By mid-afternoon, waves of flotsam would sweep over the berm where I walked every day. These interlopers had discovered my treasured walk along the wash. Dog walkers, bikers, sightseers and other newbies to outdoor exercise were crowding the gravel pathway. I had to resort to walking early in the morning before the crowds arrived.  It was time to go home.

In the past, we would have jumped on a plane and flown home. Now our options were to drive our own car home or get a rental. Truth be told, I’m not a road warrior. Driving to the end of the block is about far enough for me. Now we were facing the prospect of driving almost two thousand miles to get home. We opted for a one-way rental, got an SUV on steroids, secured a date in April, and prepared to hunker down until it was time to leave.

What we quickly realized is that while in the past we had been limited with our luggage by the astronomical airline charges and UPS fees to ship things home, now we were limited only by the storage capacity of our Greyhound bus. Sharon was in seventh heaven. All those estate sale goodies she had collected over the years could now be taken home at no additional cost.

Our cargo load was impressive even by Walmart standards:

            Four boxes of oranges

            Six boxes of lemons

            Ten boxes of food

            Six bottles of wine for Brian and Amy in Denver

            Water and snacks to last us well beyond our senior years

            Four boxes of my writing files

            Five novels and several writing reference books

            A new Bose/clock/alarm radio

            Tons of magazines (for summer reading on my porch)

            A complete set of Time/Life History of the Civil War (for Sharon’s brother)

            Ten newly recorded CDs of my favorite music in the desert

            Dell laptop, Macbook Pro laptop, two Amazon tablets, iPad, Kindle, Verizon tablet

Lots of Sharon’s art work

Sharon’s paints

Select clothing & shoes

Two twenty-five pound weights (what the heck, we had the room)

Fortunately there was still room in the Titanic for Sharon and me in steerage so we were good to go. I had promised the grandchildren in Colorado and Minnesota that if I could catch a coyote or two or some Jack Rabbits, I’d bring them along. I never did but they (and I) thought it was a great idea.

We had two basic routes to follow, the Northern route and the Southern route. The first leg of both routes began in Palm Springs and ended in Albuquerque, New Mexico. From there, the Northern route went north toward Colorado while the Southern route went east toward Oklahoma and Kansas. Weather determined that we ultimately took the Northern route. The scenery alternated between spectacular and drab as hell.

Since neither Sharon nor I are road trippers, we were totally unprepared for our existence day upon day on the road with nothing to listen to except the hum of our new tires. Neither one of us is a techno-geek. We don’t have a blue tooth between us, few apps and Sharon has only recently started to Zoom. So we ended up listening to a lot of religious radio stations and reflecting.

But that’s another story entirely; reflections of my relationship with the Catholic faith.  I’ve entitled it ‘God as My Co-Pilot’ and it will appear as a new blog in the near future.

If I were to break our trek down in simplistic terms I’d say that parts of the country between Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado were barren and bleak. It was miles upon miles of nothingness.

Once we left Eastern Colorado and hit the Nebraska – Iowa corridor, the trucks started to bunch up, filling the right hand lane. Civilization had returned. I stayed in the left hand lane and continued flying at near mock-one speed. God and country music filled my ears with distractions from the long road ahead.

Brian insisted we stop by to see the Colorado kids and pick up the Rat Pack. Therefore, after twelve hours on the road, we arrived with lemons, oranges, and special gifts from California to give our grandkids.

We had a wonderful SD (socially distant) gourmet dinner that night. Then we loaded up the ‘Rat Pack’ and left the next morning for Minnesota.

When we left Palm Springs, our cactus were in full bloom, the roads ahead mostly empty and when we got home, snow had fallen on our front lawn.

After ‘six hours’ of dancing over asphalt the first day, then’ twelve’ the second and finally ‘fifteen’ the third day, we finally arrived home late Wednesday night; Rat Pack en tow.

It’s a worn cliché, tired but true. There is no place like home.

High and Wholesome

It was a quick jaunt to Colorado while Brian and Amy slipped away for some hardcore bicycle racing interspersed with important business/social connections. Brian was riding the annual ‘Ride the Rockies’ biking event high in the Colorado Rockies. Amy was acting as his sag wagon, local transportation for Brian and two cohorts and social director for business events each evening. Sharon and I were in town to cover home base.

So, a new sheriff came to town and the grandkids couldn’t have been more thrilled. It was seven days of non-stop activities that left Nana and Papa totally exhausted and the kiddos exhilarated. A small price to pay for building quality memories with tons of experiences, events and silliness thrown in for good measure.

There were a few notable exceptions this time around. We wouldn’t in the mountains to watch the kids tearing down their favorite Black Diamond. We didn’t have a triathlon to cheer on our grandchildren like we did last year. Sadly, I didn’t have time to visit one of my favorite old hippie haunts, Boulder, Colorado. But we did find time for swim meets, starfish petting, artistic expressions, golf lessons, library stalking, stingray feeding and bourgeois-slumming. Oh, and not to leave out the most sacred of all rituals, hunting down garage sales as only Nana can orchestra it.

The first event on the first day was a huge swim meet that witnessed a gathering of all the aquatic tribes. Tent city had taken over the valuable real estate pool side but luckily we found shelter in our own neighborhood social center.

The kids clustered around books and devices. Visiting urchins came and went and no one seemed to notice. The adults watched the schedule of events while Sharon and I looked for guidance on getting our three competitors to the right lane at the right time.

Our reward for a morning of free style, breast strokes, and relays along with a half dozen ribbons was the kid’s favorite restaurant, Snooze.

It’s an annual tradition reserved only for Nana visits. We take the kids hunting for ‘mysteries’ and ‘surprises’ that only garage sales can provide. The pickings were slim this time around but that didn’t prevent us from finding a real treasure for Palm Springs.

There must be some friends in Palm Springs who would love this staged portrait. For only five dollars it was a steal and we’re determined to find a way to get it back home.

Ever encouraging our kids to read, we had to visit the newest library in town then begin the first of several art lessons.

Nana had the kids enthralled with the effects of alcohol ink. Just as Brennen and Charlotte had quickly grasped that creative process back home so too had the Colorado kids. Collectively all five grandchildren have now spread their creative wings and created some fascinating works of art. Pastel drawings were next on the list of paintings to explore.

After mass on Sunday, it was off to the Denver Aquarium and Maya’s favorite activity of petting the stingrays and Samantha’s goal of sketching the fish. Spencer just wanted to climb through every portal around.

Long before the advent of mass transportation and middle class solidarity there was an era of elegant travel and social dining reserved for the very few. Denver was no exception. ‘High Tea’ at the Brown Palace was one such event.

One of the oldest hotels in town, The Brown Palace, now offers high tea every afternoon. Amy thought it would be nice to introduce the kids to the event. While none of us is a fan of tea, I discovered several flavors to my liking and the kids loved the tiny sandwiches and pastries. What can I say, it was an experience and it didn’t hurt to introduce our grandchildren to elegant surroundings and a lesson in practicing their social graces.

The rest of our visit was a blur of swim practice every morning, golf lessons, piano lessons, Lacrosse practice and more painting lessons from Nana.

Yet we still found time for everyone to escape with their respective favorite book and just chill out. They had three boxes of books to choose from, all pre-shipped by Nana.

We set up an art gallery for the parents to see and a summary of the kid’s favorite events.

Brian had a great ride with colleagues from work, averaging fifty to seventy miles of challenging elevation each day. Amy charmed all the right people. The grandchildren had an exciting time with Nana and Papa and I only needed a couple of days to recover before planning the next sortie out west this September.

The days were non-stop as were the grandchildren. There’s a reason why only young people should have kids. It was exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. Our goal has always been to give the kiddos lots of experiences, time with their grandparents and a little advice thrown in when each grandchild gets to go on our traditional ‘Starbucks with Papa’ one per morning.

Realistically there is only a limited time available before they ‘grow up’ and move on with their lives. It’s a limited time capsule Sharon and I have tried to embrace and embellish and hold dear to our hearts.

Where else can a couple of oldsters teach and learn at the same time. We are truly blessed.