What a weird treat. The day after we played 18 holes of Golf with our buddies that ‘winter over’ like Canadian Snowbirds in the Palm Springs area, we play tennis in the morning….and snowshoe in the afternoon! How is that possible?

The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway lifts you to 8,000 feet and 3 feet of snow at Mt. San Jacinto…in 20 minutes. No chains, no winter driving, no traffic. So easy to bring your small light weight snow shoes…but don’t forget gloves, hats, and parkas because it is Winter at the top. They built this transportation system using heliopads atop each tower to ferry equipment and staff for each successive tower build. Great engineering.

Then come back to your RV park’s hot tub for a soak, and a walk around the corner to the local desert botanical garden in Palm Springs.

Photos above and below document a few of the amazing shapes that low desert plants take to survive intense heat and aridity.

I especially like this bulbous plant that looks remarkably like my fat be-hind and belly!

We then drove east to a desert bluegrass music festival at the Arizona border. We caught 3 days of great sets with the Gibson Brothers from upstate NY. Their mandolin player won the International Mandolin Player of the Year award in 2015, and one of the brothers won the International Bluegrass Songwriter of the Year award. They were weaving beautiful harmonies and picking like demons, and not even repeating songs! Lots of nice old white people tapping their feet near their giant motor coaches. Unfortunately, no young musicians or nightly musical jams in the campground were evident as is usual at these festivals. Then again, it was cold and windy as soon as the sun set at 4:30 PM in Blythe, CA in early January.