palm springs, october 2001

when i was out west last year, the palm springs aerial tramway was closed while they were putting new cars on it. with the old cars, you had to just fight your way from side to side to see everything. now, the floor rotates, and you get moved around to see the view from all sides.

so, i signed up to take the trip; they bussed a hundred or so of us over from the riviera, and up we went. it's a hell of a thing. the cars can hold 80 people, and they climb 5,873 feet in the course of the trip. i didn't take my camera because i knew i could steal these shots from tim. :)

here we are (ok, he is) taking off.

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past the first of the five towers. whenever you go over a tower, the car sways and you feel like you're falling. they don't warn you about this. :) everyone automatically goes "wooooooooooaaahh...", then does it again for fun at each of the other towers. this seems to be a universal reaction; at the visitor's center at the top, they show a video about the tramway made in the 80s (daughter character to mother character: "mom, that's so bogus!"), and everyone's doing it in the movie.

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the cars in the parking lot start to turn into specks.

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looking up to the next towers.

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watch that first step.

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you've got to look at this at full size and see the next tower in the upper right corner to really appreciate what we're talking about. gah.

in the movie, they show you that someone sits on top of the car (on top of the carriage, up above the cables) and rides it up and down once every day to do a visual safety inspection. *boggle*

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the valley station shrinks and shrinks.

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halfway up, passing the other car going down.

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palm springs starts to appear from behind the hills.

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looking down at the windmills.

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are we ever going to get there? (it's about a 15-minute trip.)

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a view of palm springs.

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and again.

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made it! now for some shots of the scenery at the top.

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beautiful, untouched country up there. if you live nearby, you can buy a tramway pass for around $200/year, and go up as often as you like. nice in the summer, when it's 110 degrees in the valley and 80 up on the mountain. there are all kinds of opportunities up here for hiking, camping, cross-country skiing, etc. the hike to the summit is 12.6 miles; i'd like to do that someday. would have to be in extra good shape, though; the thin air up there makes it tough.

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mmmmmm.

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the departure point for the donkey ride.

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as tim says, "kumbaya!"

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the water tower. everything in the visitor's center and restaurant, including the water that fills the tower, comes up on the tramway cars.

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me!

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a jeffrey tree.

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palm springs, seen from the restaurant. this looks best full-sized.

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looking down at the windmills.

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tim got to see the sunset from up here; i got to see it from the opposite side of the valley.

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looking down at the northern edge of town.

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mmmmmm.

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tim didn't climb these stairs. should have! you can clamber around on the rocks up there, and see all the way to the salton sea.

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palm springs at night. or maybe some fireflies; not sure.

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i stayed an extra week after the convention. i wasn't sure what i was going to do with it. stick around palm springs? head down to san diego? up the coast?

well, i went to the jackrabbits party saturday, and met tom. i palled (sp?) around with him all week, and had a far better time than i could ever have hoped for.

tom just moved to palm springs after having lived in los angeles for many years, and he hadn't seen a whole lot of the area because his apartmentmates are sit-at-home types. we ran all around; our two biggest trips were a day at the palm springs desert museum and another at joshua tree national park. i hadn't had my camera out for the whole trip until the day of the joshua tree excursion, when tom said he wanted to take a photo to remember me by. i got my camera out too, and got a couple of shots of him. this long shot is none too good...

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but i really like this closeup. you should look at it full-sized. isn't he adorable? :)

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joshua tree park is huuuuuuuuuuge, and we got to see a whole lot of it because i screwed up the directions, and we ended up approaching it from the south and driving up the road that bisects it. when we came out and stopped at the visitor's center at the other end (a little town in the middle of nowhere called twentynine palms), we saw this charming little church. tom asked me to get a couple of photos of it. i wish i'd known he wanted them because he wants to paint a painting from them; if i'd known, i would have framed this more tightly.

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another shot, not as good, trying to get the rectory and the covered walk that connects it to the church. that's my rental car on the right.

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we decided to head back into the park to see the sunset from keys view. this is looking down toward the salton sea, with a couple of people in the foreground waiting for the sunset.

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looking straight down from the overlook; there's a sheer drop just beyond those rocks.

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looking down into the coachella valley, with the edge of the salton sea on the left.

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panning around, getting over towards palm springs.

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the sun reaches the top the mountain (san jacinto, the one the tramway goes up). a backpacker's sitting and watching.

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the sun's just slipping over the horizon. about a dozen people have gathered to watch.

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looking down toward the parking lot.

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and it's down.

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people milling around, snapping photos.

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i really like this shot with the guy on the rock. why do people duck like they're in your way instead of accepting that you wanted them in the shot? :)

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the sun gets dimmer, and more colors start to appear.

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a red line marks the horizon out past the salton sea.

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san jacinto again. i snapped lots of shots, thinking i'd pick-and-choose the best ones, but decided to just stick them all here.

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off in the distance is san gorgonio, the tallest peak in southern california.

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looking straight down again.

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the hill to the north, past the parking lot.

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salton sea again. full-sized, this is a fairly good shot, with the rock and shrub on the left.

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the colors start to become as strong as the direct light from the sun.

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some pink mixes in with the red and orange.

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the clouds start to catch it across the valley.

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looking north again.

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wow.

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i pulled way back to get as much of it as i could; you can see how small the people are at the overlook at the edge of the hill.

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looking south from the spot i walked to.

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up closer, looking north. the camera saw a lot more color than i did.

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the flash went off on this one, so you can see the people more clearly.

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probably my favorite.

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a shot from the parking lot, just before i got back in the car.

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and one more, just for luck.

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