It was a bit of a drive to Palm Springs.  The weather started out bright and sunny and I stopped to look around old Victoriaville.  It wasn’t that old.

As I drove out past Applevalley towards Palm Springs more and more clouds gathered.  I passed pretty iffy farmland and junk yards and more signs with land for sale than I could count.  Yikes.  Good metaphor to use in writing but sad for the people here.

Stopped off in Lucern Valley and took pictures of the sheriff station.  Funny thing, parked illegally to take them.  I wanted to see what a small town station was like.  It was small.  However, I saw the best sign ever!

I drove off before the cops realized they were being scouted.

And then the rains came.

Oh boy.

Joy.

It really came down.

It made the air smell kind of rubbery.  I turned off the AC, rolled down the windows and, while rain poured in, I sniffed and sniffed and yup, it smelled rubbery.  Kinda odd.

I drove up hills, and down hills and, at the bottom of the hills, some nasty ass puddles.  And a sign that said, flood warning!

I could totally see it.  If it rained for much longer, some of those roads would become completely impassible and I would be forced to try to drive through them and end up on some Youtube video.

But the rain only lasted, what, half an hour?  Maybe 45 min.  Not exactly a Vancouver downpour but it was enough to make the air all muggy and cloying.

When I arrived at the Renaissance, the check in desk was sectioned off with yellow do-not-cross tape.  Towels covered parts of the floor like white terrycloth dykes.  Turns out the rain hammered them.

Apparently they’ve had only 5 days of rain and today was one, a great downpour.  How do I know this?  Chatty-Vacation-Joe asked.  I found out that said rain makes the whole area very humid.  Which it was.  I found out that locals can smell a storm coming.  (This I got from the security guard lady I talked to.)  I found out they don’t much like the rain, even though they know it’s necessary.

In check-in line, met a nice fellow who commented on my glasses, saying they looked great, that he loved the classic look.

I thought this might be a hello-sailor moment but it turns out he sold eyeglasses for 20 year before becoming a camera man.  A camera man?  Well, yes, now he works in the film biz and was out here to promote lenses to other studios.  He wanted to know what brought me out this way and I told him writing about the desert and he seemed genuinely interested.  He talked about the most amazing place in the desert he had seen, not in California but in Utah, the Bryce Canyon.  He even showed me pictures.

I have to say, it was kinda fun chatting with him.  His name was Filo.

Put my stuff in the room, looked at the nice view from my balcony of the pool and felt the humid heat.  Yucky.  But the room was awesome!

But at least the sun was out.

Time to see something.