Another day in paradise...

Stop what you're doing and book a trip to Palm Springs. You won't regret it.

We woke up to our amazing view and just basked in it for a bit. Then we got hungry so we headed to the city's top rated breakfast place: Elmer's.

How cute is this place? It reminds me of the Brady Bunch!

The view from the restaurant was just so ugly. We could hardly make ourselves go in. ;)
Go in we did. Jackson got a German pancake that looked a little gross to me. He loved it. I had an excellent omelet. The reviews didn't lead us astray! I love when that happens. 

After breakfast I just had to find the Hotel California. I did some Wikipedia research and found that this hotel isn't the one from the song. The song wasn't even about a real hotel! What a letdown. Two interesting notes: 1. Hotel California was the #1 song the week Jackson was born (yep. 1977. Gulp.) and 2. it was written about Los Angeles' dark side not any particular place. I found this fascinating. Regardless, the Hotel California location in Palm Springs was gorgeous. 

We drove by Frank Sinatra's former home, too. I'd recently read about Frank's affinity in Palm Springs in a book about JFK. Seemingly the two of them were friends and Frank would host JFK when he was in town.

The sign outside of the visitor's center had a lovely backdrop.

Teslas are all the rage in California. They're Americanmade and completely electric. They also are high performance going from 0 to 60 in 4.2 seconds.  And they run a mere $113,770 and have only a 265 mile range per charge.

We departed from Palm Springs to make the long drive to Phoenix. Before we left we stopped for coffee at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf cafe in downtown and got lattes behind Stephen Spielberg. Yep. He's got a home there. He's smart. 

Not smart? Drinking lattes and whole bottles of water before driving through the desert. We had to stop twice to potty! Bathrooms weren't easy to come by so it was quite the adventure finding places to relieve ourselves. Let's just say men have it a lot easier. 

We made to Phoenix just in time to catch the sunset at Hole in the Rock. An aptly named rock formation near the zoo. 

The sunset did not disappoint. We love the stark contrast of the desert and the mountains.
We snapped a quick photo of ourselves IN the mountain. It was so neat! The rocks held in the heat of the day and acted like a warmer on the increasingly chilly evening. 
I, of course, dared Jackson to climb this rock. He obliged. 

But he wasn't convinced and actually for scared. I had to document that. We finished exploring and headed for our resort on the other side of town. 

Jackson actually voluntarily booked a nice hotel for us. Ha! ;) Normally he accidentally lands us in a nice spot. We were surprised to see that Jackson's favorite steakhouse from our time in Denver, The Keg, had a location about a mile from the hotel. Score. Fancy dinner it is. 

Jackson got to have his favorite steak, wine and we shared a dessert. It was a nice day despite the long drive and desert urination adventures! :)