Almost a full night’s sleep must mean I am finally getting over the jet lag.
At 8am, Neil knocked on our door and we wandered over to the ‘Pantry’ for breakfast. Neil was not impressed with the offerings. Karen and I were more positive and had some of the porridge pots and yoghurt. We made ourselves some tea and declared we had had far worse breakfasts in many other places.
England’s last-32 match in the World Cup was scheduled to kick off at 9am. Our back-up plan was to drive the mile down the road to the sports bar in the casino to watch it.
Fortunately, though, my first plan was simply to get iPlayer working on the laptop, as I surmised that the Wi-Fi would have enough bandwidth to cope that morning.
Apart from a couple of minor buffering issues, I was correct.
We sat and watched the match together and had to send the cleaner away twice as she wanted to get into our room.
Loud cheers of joy and relief all round when Sir Harry showed all the class that somehow wasn’t on display when he played for Norwich. Neil has never forgiven him for that.
As extra time wasn’t needed, we had time to head out to Walmart for the first time this trip to stock up on provisions.
It was a jolly nice one too.
I had no intention of buying any clothes, but somehow ended up with two rather smart summer shirts for the vastly reduced price of $4 each.
As Karen said, even if I only wore them once…
As if!
We took our newly procured sandwiches and other bits to a nearby park where, mercifully, there were some benches under cover and out of the midday sun where we could sit and eat.
It was then perfect timing to drive to the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway for our 2pm tickets up Mount San Jacinto.
This is the world’s largest rotating tramway, taking passengers to the top of the 8,500-foot mountain. We have done it a couple of times before but always enjoy both the ride and the walking trails at the top.
The other attraction is that it is usually around 30 degrees cooler up there.
The temperature below was forecast to reach almost 100°F.
After paying over $100 for the tickets online, I was less than impressed to have to pay a further $15 for parking, especially as there is no practical alternative other than driving there.
I smiled, said “please” and “thank you” to the chap taking my money, all the while thinking rather evil thoughts.
There was no queue, so we boarded the next tram – or cable car, as I would call it.
Karen had trouble with the revolving floor and, rather than standing still, kept gradually edging round with it and gently pushing into me all the time.
Still, the journey was spectacular as we climbed over 6,000 feet.
At the top, we walked to the highest viewpoints.
The temperature was just perfect up there and the views were magnificent. The air had that beautiful, crisp mountain freshness to it.
Before heading down into the valley on the other side of the mountain, we shared a Coke between us.
We had planned to walk the 1½-mile Desert View Trail but hadn’t realised it was three-quarters of a mile just to reach the start, all of it steeply downhill.
Given that Karen and I were already noticing the effect of the altitude on our breathing, and knowing we would then have the long, steep climb back up to the tram station, we decided to tackle the shorter Nature Trail instead.
Neil opted to continue on the longer route, which was really just an extension of the trail we were taking.
We didn’t see much wildlife apart from chipmunks (all of whom, naturally, were called Dale), but the scenery was breathtaking.
For most of the walk, we could have been deep in the wilderness. There were no other people around.
All we could see and hear was nature, and for a while we were completely at one with it.
To think just over 24 hours before we had been in the neon full on Las Vegas and now this. I know which one I prefer. It made us both want to do another trip to our favourite National Parks. I know I wrote recently that everyone should visit Vegas once in their lifetime if they can, but I would put the National Parks in Utah and Oregon an even higher priority than that.
We waited for Neil at the agreed meeting point at the bridge before tackling the loop back to the start and then the massive incline to the tram station.
Our bodies struggled more with the thinner air than the gradient itself, but slowly and surely we made it. We didn’t envy the England footballers who have to play their next game at an altitude just below this.
We all agreed to catch the next tram down, which was surprisingly quite empty.
They played music during the descent, which soon turned into a bit of a sing-song.
Back at the bottom, the heat hit us immediately as we walked back to the car.
Back at the hotel, Karen and Neil spent an hour by the pool whilst I caught up on life’s admin, pleased to be out of the heat for a while.
Whilst doing so, I resolved an issue that had arisen for later in the trip.
We had looked at when England’s next match was taking place and had seen on the BBC website that it was scheduled for 1am on 6 July.
As we already had tickets to see the Padres play on 6 July, we thought we had a clash.
It wasn’t until I stopped and thought about it that I realised the England game was actually at 5pm on 5 July in our time zone, when we had nothing planned at all.
I felt like Phileas Fogg when I worked that out.
For tonight’s dinner, we headed to the Old Spaghetti Factory in Rancho Mirage.
We went in and, whilst there were a few customers, there was not a single member of staff to be seen.
No host.
No bar staff.
No waiting staff.
After five minutes, I ended up walking towards the kitchen to see whether they were actually open.
I’m not sure what had been going on, but they all suddenly sprang from everywhere into action.
The food was perfectly acceptable.
But only just.
It’s not somewhere we’ll be hurrying back to.
Karen requested that we popped into Target on the way back, as she was after another swimming costume, so we did.
We were in and out in under 25 minutes, which is almost a record.
After the usual cuppas, we were in the land of nod by 10.30pm.
And so, another day was done. I am sure days on holiday go quicker than any other days.
