Jono and I have this week off. This summers been absolutely manic, so crazy in fact, that we didn't even find a chance to plan our vacation (which was supposed to be two weeks). This is very unusual for us, as we normally dream up vacations years in advance. And so we found ourselves searching the internet for last minute deals late Sunday afternoon. By tuesday we still hadn't found anything that invoked our wanderlust and realized that if we didn't decide on a destination soon we would end up staying home and feeling cheated out of a holiday. Desperate times call for desperate measures, which meant we needed to consider Palm Springs. In August the mercury reaches a searing 110 degrees fahrenheit (43 degrees celsius) in Palm Springs. That is stinkin hot! Because of the unbearable heat, hotels in this area offer great deals during this time of year. "How bad could it be?' we thought to ourselves.
And so, with a spring in our step, we packed our bags in a minute and were out the door to a hotel we pricelined (priceline lets you name your own price on hotels, flights and more. If you haven't tried it yet, you should!).
This hotel was a.ma.zing. Its called The Riviera and it used to be a hotspot for celebrities such as Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis and Marilyn Monroe in the 50's and 60's. It recently underwent a $70 million renovation, fuzing 60's chic decor with modern design. It is absolutely beautiful. Once we arrived the girl at the front desk informed us that their pool was closed for maintenance (a smaller pool on the premises was still open). She apologized for the inconvenience and offered to upgrade us to a Junior Suite. Heck yeah. We got hooked up!
The view from our balcony
Me: way excited about the bathroom
The fun wall paper in the corridors
Love the design of this place
Tuesday night we went to an awesome restaurant: Las Consuelas Terraza. This place had so much atmosphere with great lighting and a live band. We got seated in our own little booth.
The following day we braved the heat and ventured out to have brunch at Pinnochios: a 'great place for brunch' according to Yelp and apparently one of the most gay places in Palm Springs. Anyhoo, we had a delicious brunch and then took a trip down Palm Canyon drive to suss out the area (also to enjoy the air conditioning the funbus had to offer). In the afternoon we took the Palm Springs aerial tramway up to Mount San Jacinto. This is the largest rotating cable car in the world- I'm sure Table Mountain's tram is a close second. The views from the top are truly breathtaking and the difference in temperature was remarkable.
We decided to have dinner up there. No sooner had we finished, but a raccoon shows up to scavenge off our leftovers. little bugger. He didn't even care that we were only standing a few inches away. he took a piece of my turkey and then came back for a slice of beef, Cheeky little fellow!
Here are some more pics of the fun decor at the Riviera:
They had these awesome beanbags to use in the pool. Can you spot Jono?
