A Saturday In The Desert Cities

From Palm Springs to La Quinta and Bermuda Dunes and back; maybe a slight hint of Indio, difficult to say. It was a road trip of sorts, very urban but definitely a road trip with cameras slung and objectives in mind. Objectives which would be fulfilled with some surprises along the way and some failures at the end. Is it an admission of failure to use 'straightening' in Photoshop? The fact is, conditions are sometimes less than ideal for photography. Without an articulated LCD screen (a feature of my next camera) maintaining an horizon in an awkwardly held camera can be rather speculative. I benefit from being tall and I can get my camera where others can not (say nothing Kettlewell and you Bethel, stop snickering) but it does not always work out and I don't publish what I don't like. My standards go beyond OCD with very rare compromises. Greg straightened a shot for me from the wonderful Bermuda Dunes airport but I was absolutely mortified that I had cropped the offside mirror of a glorious fire truck at Rancho Mirage Fire Station No.1 where I had had a friendly reception and a good chat. That faux pas came about when the light was too bright for the LCD.  I am an uncompromising fan of digital as the sheer volume of images possible these days would have been prohibitively expensive with film. I also use the camera as a notebook, recording reference shots to help later with my notes. Purists will even now be sneering into their skinny lattes or, more likely, Darjeeling. They will argue that more thought should go into the composition in the first place and that shots should not be wasted. I travel a middle road, understanding the principle they espouse but preferring to apply 10-20% of my creativity at home in shot selection and minor pp but, usually, without Photoshop. Amongst the oddities of today and the delightful surprise of a '65 Ford Mustang were two really important stops. The Cancer Survivors Park in Rancho Mirage delivers an important message to anyone affected directly or indirectly by cancer and to the population at large. It is a joyous place and I hope to see some of the other parks in 21 cities around the US and in Canada. My Flickr and Facebook albums tell the tale. The Eisenhower Walk of Honor in Indian Wells is also beautifully executed and, co-located with the Indian Wells Memorial, thought provoking as such memorials should be.

It takes a while to move about the Valley and through its thousand stop lights but that can be an advantage when on the lookout. We ate lunch not at Baja Fresh as planned but at Rockin' Baja in La Quinta. The food was excellent, scoring highly for freshness of preparation. Our meal was actually obscenely large and our evening food consumption consequently minimal. I liked though that it was flautas evening at the Inndulge social hour. I liked an internet failure (local router) much less but it was time for bed anyway. Monday will be the perfect time to move on to San Diego but we have already decided that we shall come back to Palm Springs indefinitely. Jon and Sandy are not John and Jean-Guy but no bad things have happened at Inndulge. There are good new things and many of the good old things. Any change is being applied with a lightness of touch which recognises the goodwill that came with the property. Ours is intact and LAX immigration will see us again.