There’s not much to report on our travels today (Thursday) since they were pretty much a repeat of yesterday – desert, lush valleys and mountainous terrain. Our route took us to Palm Springs, a popular winter tourist destination given that the sun shines here on average 360 days of the year and it is usually warmer than the coastal area. Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Indian Wells and Palm Desert Hot Springs are four communities carved out of the desert – almost like an oasis. You travel from one community to the next, seamlessly, although there are some distinctions mostly in the types of shops and how many gated communities there are. Palm Springs is for the rich and famous!

Fred Pamenter had given us two recommendations for restaurants so we found the first – Café des Beaux-Arts and settled on their patio for lunch. We particularly enjoyed the fact that they had to give a phonetic description of how to say their name. I guess there aren’t too many francophones in California. The other restaurant he recommended was a seafood restaurant called Pacifica. We noticed in the CAA travel book that there was also an outlet in Del Mar where we were headed. When we arrived at our hotel we asked the front desk assistant to make a reservation for dinner.  We were surprised by a prime table by the window overlooking the sea (too dark to see!) and the main street of this quaint little town. Great evening!

Today was golf day. We headed off about 10am to Torrey Pines in the hotel shuttle. This is certainly a no-stress way to get back and forth. The driver dropped us off right at the entrance and picked us up in the same spot for the return trip home. As some may know Torrey Pines is actually two public courses – one north and one south. They use both of them the first two days of the tournament but only the larger south course on the last two days. We decided to just walk the south course, which we did starting at the 18th hole and working our way backwards. The views are spectacular with some of the holes very close to the cliffs overlooking the water. As we were standing watching at the third green a hang glider floated by…a bit of a distraction for the golfers, but I guess many of them are used to it. We were surprised at the few public bleachers available and many of the holes did not have good viewing areas for people to even stand around the greens. Corporate America has taken over the PGA, I’m afraid!

Dinner tonight was at a popular Mexican restaurant in the next little town north. It seemed strange since most of the restaurant was below ground in a sort of cave-like setting. The fajitas were good but quite different from what we’re used to.

Off to bed! Tomorrow will be a big day.