Adventure in Coachella Valley
About a month ago I found incredibly cheap roundtrip tickets to Palm Springs and instantly bought my tickets. While I began planning my trip, I realized that my college friend Lor-Shing lived in LA - only an hour and a half drive away. She was free for half of the weekend so she decided to come join me in the desert.
Day 1
I arrived on Friday at 11am. I was planning on working remote for the day and Lor-Shing had some work to get done, so we found a coffee shop nearby and stopped in for the morning.
Though we had work to get done, we were both so eager to catch up and talk about all that had happened in our lives since the last time we saw each other. Giving ourselves more work and study breaks than we deserved, we found little moments to share anecdotes and eventually dove into a informative and self-reflective conversation about our personality traits and enneagrams.
Realizing that we were doing more talking than working and that we weren’t expecting to get too much work done for the rest of the day, at 4pm we packed up our belongings and sat in her car figuring out what to do next. We decided to venture into the snowy mountains of Mount San Jacinto via the Aerial Tram. We drove through the canyon leading to the base of the clouded mountains that towered over the town. The steady incline was proving to be a challenge to Lor-Shing’s sedan, but we let our conversation about life and love drown out the sound of the high rpm gear shifts of the car.
We beat the tour bus by a couple minutes and avoided waiting in the painfully long and restless line of tourists eagerly awaiting their trip up the side of the mountain. We entered the tram and as we began our ascent into the misty clouds above, we were surprised to feel the platform begin to turn. The circular platform made three rotations on our 15-minute ride to the mountain, giving us a view of both the mountain station ahead and the valley below.
For a 5 minute segment of our ride, we entered into a Jurassic Park like scene as the thick fog kept us from seeing only a couple hundred feet around us. My childhood fear of pterodactyls appearing from a dark fog crept back into my heart until we broke through the fog and were enlightened to see a wintery landscape atop the eerie cloud blanket.
We stepped off the tram into a cold wintery wonderland, much like the snowy Colorado mountains I had just left hours ago. Around us were unprepared Californians fashioning their flip-flops and short sleeves and Lor-Shing mentioned that this was the first time she had seen snow since living in Washington years ago. We wandered among the shaded forests on the mountainside, occasionally sinking into the deep snow and stepping back in shock as my stylish booties and Lor-Shing’s cloth sneakers weren’t built for cold and wet conditions.
We made our way back to the warm cabin and found a secluded corner to enjoy our hot chocolates and continue our conversation about where we were headed in life. In between our reflective conversation, we lulled into long spells of silence, where we turned our face to the sun and let the self-reflective thoughts sink into our hearts. The sun was beginning to set so we decided to make our way back down to a more favorable warm climate 10,000 feet below.
We were both tired from the travels and adventures of the day so we stopped in at our AirBnb and took a long nap to recover. I was jerked awake, and in a panic checked my clock to the surprise that I had slept for two hours. We were both incredibly hungry so we quickly found a Mexican restaurant to fill our stomachs. By the time we were done eating, it was too late in the day to do anything else so we went back to the AirBnb with a pint of dairy-free ice cream and called it a night.
Day 2
Lor-Shing needed to leave by 12:30 to make it back to Los Angeles, so we decided to get an early start to Joshua Tree National Park to make the most of our remaining time together. I had visited Joshua Tree National Park once while I was a college student, but the drive was completely unfamiliar to me. We arrived as the ranger was getting to the entrance station so we were hopeful to be some of the first people in the park.
We had no rigid plan so we drove through the park and stopped at unique spots along the way as they peaked our interest. We climbed among the rocks, wandered through the Joshua Trees, leisurely enjoying the warm sunlight against our skin.
We stumbled across some boulderers in the park, so even though I wasn’t properly dressed, I borrowed a pair of shoes from the friendly climbers and jumped on a couple easy climbs. I caught myself saying “I definitely need to make a climbing trip out here” several times and made a mental note to reach out to climbing friends later to gauge interest.
We spent most of our time at the Jumbo Rocks area, wandering among the massive tan-colored rocks, laying out on the surface of the rocks and letting the sun warm our skin and hearts. There’s something about carelessly wandering around a foreign landscape, throwing my arms in the air and twirling with and against the wind, that makes me connect with my whole self. Letting the emotions of my heart manifest in frustrating screams, a fit of laughter, or uncontrollable tears, creates space for my heart to show her true colors, and gives my brain the opportunity to catch up and recognize where my heart’s at.
This time, twirling to the beat of the joyful music in my heart, I laughed and smiled, and thanked God for friends like Lor-Shing that ground me and remind me of the gifts He has granted me in this stage of my life. I thanked Him for granting me the opportunity to experience freedom like never before, and trusting me to share my story with the world.
We walked, we danced, we laughed, but it was soon time to say goodbye. Goodbyes are difficult, especially when you don’t feel like you’ve had enough time to properly catch up. I still had so much I wanted to do with Lor-Shing, but she had to return to her ever-changing life in Los Angeles so at 2pm, she dropped me off in downtown Palm Springs and she was on her way home.
My plan was to wander around the town of Palm Springs until it got dark, then return to the airport to pick up my rental car. I had four hours to kill, and an entire town to explore, so how bad could it be? I didn’t realize that Palm Springs was a very bougie town, and unfortunately didn’t find anything that interested me as I walked around town. I also wasn’t hungry so stopping into a restaurant to enjoy a meal wasn’t an option. I found a quiet spot on a side street and took a moment to enjoy people watching and sitting in silence.
Finally it was time to return to the airport to pick up my rental car - a sweet silver Toyota Corolla. It was already dark, but I wanted to try my hand at night photography so I drove back out to Joshua Tree National Park and spent two hours in the cold trying to capture the light of the stars against the beautiful desert landscape.
Instead of finding a place to sleep for the night, I decided that I would car camp in my rental car so I could be more flexible with my schedule. My next destination was a two hour drive away and my plan was to car-camp in the desert area surrounding it, but after an hour of driving, I was too tired to continue driving. So I stopped in at a 24 hour fitness parking lot and called it a night.
Day 3
I slept surprisingly well in the Corolla, a much smaller vehicle than my Highlander that I’m used to, but made it work by putting down the back seats and sticking my feet into the darkness of the trunk. I woke up awfully early to take quick shower at 24 hour fitness before heading out to my next destination. After getting freshened up, I drove south along the Salton Sea and witnessed a beautiful sunrise. The pink and orange sky silhouetted the palm tree farms in such a way that I felt like I was on the beach.
I arrived at Salvation Mountain just as the sun was beginning to peak over the hill. As I was driving up, I could see a couple hundred feet ahead of me the massive lettering on the side of the hill that read “GOD IS LOVE”. The excitement in my heart grew to a skip-and-a-hop toward the vibrant mountain that proclaimed the love of Christ to the world. There were a group of girls taking photos of each other and admiring the 50 foot display of faith and love.
After the girls left, I was the only one remaining and proceeded to walk around the property, examining the hallowed out vehicles that were plastered with the same messages of faith and love. While wandering around, a voice in the distance called out “Good Morning, how are you doing today”? I turned around toward the voice and tried to make out the person it belonged to. After a couple seconds, I saw a man with crazy curly hair in the shadow of an RV waving and walking in my direction. I answered “I can’t complain. I get to worship Jesus on a Sunday at the most magnificent place in the world”.
He introduced himself as Ron, one of the caretakers of the mountain. He told me about each of the cats that lives on the property, their different personalities and a couple anecdotes about each of them. As other visitors visited the mountain, he stayed by my side, shouted a quick greeting and continued on with the conversation we were having.
We didn’t talk too much about faith, although I wish we did. It seemed he was happy to have someone around to listen to stories from his daily life. He was very proud to be part of the salvation mountain family and being a part of the movement to share the love of Christ with others.
For some context, Salvation Mountain lies in a off-the-beaten-path desert town called “Slab City”. Slab City isn’t much of a city at all really, it’s just a collective of vehicle-dwelling folk. Most of the population lived in RVs but it didn’t seem these vehicles were used for transportation at all. Run down tarps and steel sheets held up by wooden posts were makeshift porches outside the entrance of campers ironically decorated with the colors and designs of the desert.
As a charcoal grey Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van sped down the dirt road adjacent to Ron’s home, he let out a snarky comment about “those people” and how they glamorize living out of a vehicle. Oh if only he knew that I was “one of those trendy car-dwellers” too. He’s right though, I don’t understand the lifestyle of the vehicle-dwellers in Slab City, and I hope I don’t seem like I claim to be. That honest comment that Ron made gave me a lot to think about on my drive back to Palm Springs.
Per Ron’s suggestion, I made a quick stop at East Jesus - a whimsical art installation just down the road. From the fuselage an old Cessna plane to a huge wall of old tube televisions, this interesting destination did not disappoint. Here I met a man of many names, but apparently the people here call him “Wizard”. His long beard, excessively tall and crooked wooden cane, and long tattered trench coat suggested that the nickname was founded from his appearance rather than his mystical powers. Wizard aimlessly pointed at several parts around the property and claimed creative genius and manual effort on several of the art pieces. Free from his wizardly mysterious speech about the purpose of the East Jesus art installation, I walked around to each piece to appreciate the handiwork.
After a morning of interesting conversation and much to think about, I drove back to Palm Springs, enjoying the Palm Tree farms along the way.
Next stop was the Moorten Botanical Garden. I heard about a beautiful cactus greenhouse and was excited to see it for myself. The botanical garden held all kinds of desert plants, from the dense fountain-style leaves of the Aloe Vera plant to tiny button cacti. At the entrance of the garden and final stop of the botanical garden loop was a shop with an array of succulents and desert plants that were for sale. I desperately wanted one but my small living space and airplane baggage limitations held me back from making a spontaneously rash decision to purchase a new plant friend.
With a couple hours remaining before I had to head to the airport, I decided to head out to Indian Canyon to see the biggest California Fan Palm Oasis in the world. I didn’t bring any athletic shoes so I wasn’t going to be able to go on a very aggressive hike, but I found two short hikes to explore.
The loop hike at Andreas Canyon was a living, ecological dichotomy. In the desert hills of Agua Caliente Nature Preserve was a lush green oasis sustained by the stream formed from the snowmelt of mountains many miles away. Walking into the valley of the dry barren mountains, I felt my lungs being coated with the moisture from the oasis surrounding me. To the right of the trail was a rock wall carved out from years of steady water erosion, and to my left was the flowing of a crystal clear stream that supplied the nutrients for the massive palm trees that provided my shade.
The loop took me on on the canyon on the south bank of the stream where I could get a aerial view of the oasis against the backdrop of red stone. Back when I would go hiking in the Pacific Northwest, I would be in awe as I looked at a mountaintop view of dense forest around me and ask the daunting question “How many trees do you think we can see from here?”. Asking this question at this particular spot on my hike didn’t seem so daunting. In fact from where I stood, I could probably give you an accurate number within the hour.
It was growing dark and the time to return the rental car was creeping near so I began my drive back to the airport. With a camera full of photos and a happy heart filled with new memories with an old friend, I was heading home to Denver with a smile on my face.
