Palm Springs, California

Greta turned 3 this week.  I made her a unicorn pillow.  She's holding it with her
unicorn dress.

Roy had a NATSAP conference in Palm Springs this week and I came along for the ride.  It's been a fun, relaxing week for me, and a fun relaxing weekend for Roy.  He worked really hard until about 11:00 am on Friday.  NATSAP stands for National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs. When Roy goes to these conferences, he sets up a booth and then talks to people about his business of providing software for electronic medical records.  If he can get a demo set up, he usually gets a new customer.  The tiring thing for him is just having to be "on" for several days in a row.  While he was working I was able to exercise (I tried out the hotel's yoga and Zumba class, and used their exercise room) and then sit out in the sun and read (it wasn't super warm until Friday afternoon and Saturday, but it was sunny).

Each evening there were "events" hosted by various companies involved in the conference.
 Usually it was just light appetizers, but sometimes it was full meals.  Below was a "masquerade" event.
We usually just went for a short time to see if there was anyone Roy needed to socialize with.

Friday we took Roy's work associate to the airport then we took a tram up to the top of a mountain here in Palm Springs.  Someone must have been watching out for us, because our timing was perfect.  A young couple was leaving as we were arriving and they held out two tickets and said they weren't going to use them.  Roy was really confused and asked if they were still valid.  I said "Thank you" and I think Roy mumbled that, too.  He still didn't believe they would just hand over some tickets so he took them to the ticket booth to make sure we could use them.  We have no idea why the couple left--an emergency at home, a realization that they wouldn't be able to make an appointment...but the tickets were worth about $50.  We went on the tram and took a short hike around to see all the viewpoints.  The most enjoyable thing was just uninterrupted time with Roy to talk.  It was supposed to be 40 degrees cooler at the top of the mountain, but it couldn't have been because we were very comfortable in just a sweater.  There was snow on the ground, but not lots, just enough to make it a little bit slick and somewhat muddy in places.

There were some great views

On Saturday we went on another hike--this time we had to pay for it.  We hiked to a waterfall, and the land on which the waterfall resides is Indian reservation land, so there's a fee to hike it.  We'd been told by a man we met on the hike the day before that it would take 2 hours, but it was only an hour at a fairly easy pace.  Still, it was a beautiful day with beautiful scenery and again, uninterrupted time together.

The waterfall doesn't look like much, but it was bigger than it
seems in this picture 

Overlooking the valley towards the end of our hike.

Following the hike we went to Palm Springs air museum.  Roy loved it, of course, and I even enjoyed it.  He was very impressed with the collection of airplanes on display.

The last two evenings we opted for staying at the hotel and having a relaxing hot tub.  Friday night we shared the hot tub with three high school students that had obviously snuck in.  They were cute kids and happy to converse with us.  The girl was from Ukraine and had moved here when her mother had remarried.  At first I didn't believe her because she didn't have much of an accent.  Saturday evening we had the hot tub all to ourselves.  One of the boys said he planned to be a nurse so that he could make enough money to build a sort of commune (he didn't call it that) where he and his brothers would buy some land and build underground homes with rules that everyone pull their weight or they'd be booted out of the community.  Interesting idea; but the kids seemed like pretty good kids.  

As usual, we were glad to get home so that we could sleep in our own bed and shower in our own shower and get back into our routine.