Palm Springs

We grabbed a quick (free!) breakfast at the hotel in LA before heading out to Palm Springs. The traffic between the two was not fun at all. A two hour drive took us closer to three hours. Boo Hoo.

We booked our Palm Springs hotel at the last minute with our credit reward points so we didn't know what to expect. We were pleasantly surprised when our hotel was actually pretty awesome.

We had another balcony with an excellent view. Palm Springs is a gorgeous place.
The mountains and palm trees were just awesome!
We wanted a good hike so we headed to an Indian reservation's nature trail called Indian Canyons. It was a rattlesnake habitat. I was scared. Jackson mocked me. Typical. 

These little huts were in the bottom of the canyon. Don't they look inviting? Once I checked them for snakes I had to crawl in. 

You're telling me you wouldn't have? Whatever.
I kept telling Jackson they looked like hula skirts and tried to be tall enough to illustrate my point. It didn't work.
THERE we go! Thanks, babe. ;)
We both climbed in one and pretended to be survivors on a deserted island for a moment. Again, that's normal. Right?
I thought this bent tree was awesome so I did a backbend under it. This photo has garnered a lot of response on social media and I'm not sure why. Can't we all do backbends? 

We did the most strenuous hike and when we reached the summit Jackson wanted to scale the rocks. He's half monkey.
Jackson on top of the world. Really. We were pretty high up there.
He then sat down to find his zen. I love when he does that. He's such a nerd. :)
I climbed up, too. Jackson was so proud. 

God sure created a magnificently beautiful planet! 

We hiked back down to the canyon floor

and explored the dried up riverbed. This is an unkept palm tree. Cool, huh? 

These trees has been trimmed but they were still cool.
The park's entrance had a very tight squeeze at one point. It was kind of crazy!
I thought it was so pretty that I got out and snapped a photo. :)

The sun goes down pretty early out here so we only got to hike around for a few hours before nightfall. We got cleaned up (it was super dusty out there!) and headed into town to get dinner. We ate outside (love it!) at one of the best Mexican restaurants ever before discovering that each Thursday the city has a street vendor fair. Score. We walked around, bought a few gifts and drank a fresh squeezed lemonade. Life was good! We enjoyed the evening and then headed back to the hotel to go to bed by 10:30. This time change thing just hasn't stuck yet!