Ignore the damn timepost, this deals with Saturday...

Friday night ended in a wonderful party hosted by my sister and a mix of people I knew from when I was here last and some new ones as well. My friend Matt managed to swing by on his way from Arizona to LA with his sister and equipped with a bottle of good tequila. We drank to good friendships.

The next day, sans any sort of hangover, My sis and I headed east to Palm Springs to meet up with my Uncle and Aunt. Before we could begin we found progress halted by the Festival of the Whales parade which celebrates the whale's migratory path past the Dana Point coast. There were a couple of interesting floats but you can see the one that captured my attention. There was a hoard of unicyclists too, around 30 or so and this one guy had a spectacular ride. The parade seemed to have ground to a halt and the unicyclists were just going in circles playing a version of Polo that involved unicycles instead of horses and a stuffed shark instead of a ball.

The journey was faster than we expected, which was nice. It has been a while since I have been on I-5 and that unto itself was delightful. What was truly amazing was the transition from beach to mountains to desert. Right before you get into Palm Springs there all these windmills, most over 60 feet tall, quietly spinning. I have seen these sorts of windfields before and find them comforting while totally chaotic. While in any given line four or five might be spinning, the chances they would logically be next to each other never proved true. Much like the mystery of where a tornado touches down, there the wind could hit one and skip the windmill directly behind it.Once we got into Palm Springs we decided to get a little food at a small local joint before going for a hike (a brilliant BLT). We then followed Palm Canyon Drive south into the hills to climb Garstin Trail. It ascends about 1,1oo feet, around 5 miles round trip and is about a40% grade which meant about 25 switchback throughout. Once at the top we could see quite a distance over Palm Springs to the far hills. The panoramic is a composite of multiple pictures without a tripod.
This is a good picture of my sis and me at the top.That was followed by a glorious dinner at a Mexican restaurant with my Uncle and Aunt, then some wandering to find some live music. I was exhausted, a call from my landlord at 6:30AM because he didn't realize that I was in CA meant I had only four hours of sleep so we returned to the hotel and slept.