all of the cacti ever

One of the places my mom and I checked out when in Palm Springs was the Morton botanical gardens. I had heard them mentioned a few times before and on Sunday we decided to check it out. It's a small botanical garden but a really wondrous array of succulents. There were a bunch of paths running through the larger ones outdoors, and then a spectacular greenhouse full of more crazy looking cacti than I've ever seen before as well as a nursery area if you wanted to bring some of the different varieties home with you. I would totally recommend seeking out this spot, though I do think it would have been even more enjoyable if we had not gone on the hottest day of our visit.

Houses of Palm Springs

On Saturday my mom and I rented bikes (from this place and they were awesome) and did a bit of a self guided tour of Palm Springs neighborhoods. We said we were looking for some pretty houses were pointed in the right direction by the guys at the shop. We got our bikes at about 9 in the morning and rode for a few hours until it was too hot and we were too tired to continue and so we called it and got lunch. These were just a few of my favorite places I saw, as you can see, I have a thing for doors, gates and hedges!

The above door was my favorite (how could it not be it looks like a pink chocolate bar!) and I was so so excited to find it. So the moral of the story is, if you are visiting Palm Springs, I highly suggest biking as a way to see a bunch more of the area, and some of the beautiful midcentury design that it's known for. As you can see below, I very much enjoyed myself.

Palm Springs

I just got back from a long weekend in Palm Springs. I've never been there before but always heard great things and from the pictures it looked like such a beautiful place I have had it on my to-visit list for a while. My mom and I made a deal when I was seven, that we would meet for a trip the year I turned 30, so when we finally sat down to figure out where to go this past January, and both wanted to go somewhere warm with water and things and pretty shops and maybe a pool and some tropical drinks, we ended up deciding on Palm Springs.
We drove down from the bay area, and while it wasn't a short drive, it was very beautiful winding through the desert We saw a bunch of spectacular clouds and even got rained on. Twice!

The place we ended up staying at was found on Airbnb. It was a little condo on the edge of town. The neighborhood was quiet, it had a pool and bocce ball and a small kitchen and a big private patio out back. As Palm Springs isn't that big we actually found it very nice to be on the edge, since it was so easy to walk to the main street and anywhere we would like to go, and then retreat back to our little oasis when we wanted to hang by the pool.



The whole place was very color coordinated, everything was orange or hot pink and there was lots of mirrored furniture pieces. It made for a fun home for our vacation.


There was a lot of wandering around during our stay, checking out houses and poking around it shops. I found that most of the pictures I took were of succulents or doors. The light was just so nice that everything ended up looking pretty great.

We ate at several pretty delicious spots but we went to Cheeky's Sunday for a mother's day breakfast and that was by far the best meal of the whole trip. The fresh juices were perfect ( and I loved the little individual beakers they were served in) and in addition to the excellent pulled pork hash with avocado I also got a bacon flight (!!!!) for us to taste which was amazing.

(there was tons and tons of bougainvillea covering every wall and climbing most of the fences. I have never seen it in so many different shades of pink and purple. I have about a hundred similar pictures because I just loved every bit of it)

We also visited a few of the hotels, even though we weren't staying in any of them, the design was fantastic. The Parker in particular had the most amazing mix of furniture and some very lovely grounds to wander. I loved the little couches and hammocks tucked into nooks along the paths. It really added to the luxurious and relaxed feel of the place.

As I said all the food we had was pretty excellent, but I do feel like I should mention Great Shakes (I wanted to try every single milkshake on their menu and their five star yelp review is totally warranted) and Birba (right next door to Cheekys) where we got a super tasty dinner our last night in town. In fact the meal was so good (and the cocktails, I had something with grapefruit and bitters and st Germain and it was wonderfully refreshing) that I didn't take any pictures. I was too busy scarfing it all down! So I will just have to make due with this picture of the nifty marquee light "B" that they had outside.

Since there are so many of them I am still editing down all the photos of houses that I took on our bike tour so I will try to have those pulled together by tomorrow.

weekend adventure

I joined my friend for another hike this weekend ( she's trying to check out a different trail each weekend with her dog) this time up in Berkeley. We took the wildcat gorge trail in Tilden Park. It was a perfect day, sunny and clear but not too hot. There was a lovely mix of terrain, a bunch of rocky scrambling around the man made lake, really beautiful stretches walking through the woods, even some redwoods, and then opening up to some grassier hills that slowly wove upward. There was unfortunately fog on the bay so we didn't have the best view out but as long as I get to use my legs and breath some fresh air I'm happy

long weekend adventure

Having an extra weekend day is wonderful. Somehow I am always able to get infinitely more done with just 24 more hours. This weekend a friend asked if I wanted to join her on a hike with her dog so we headed over to the Marin headlands and started walking. I don't think we were really prepared for quite how steep the whole thing was, there was a lot of scrambling up very steep rocky hills (felt more like climbing cliffs!) but the scenery was beautiful the whole way. It started out clear and blue skied and incredibly hot.


Then as we turned a corner towards the ocean the fog started trailing in between the hills. It got very moody, there were sections where you couldn't see anything beyond the particular path we are on. I'm sure on a clear day the view is spectacular, but there was a certain neat something  going on with all the fog.

There were some old grafittied bunkers (with this spectacular panda above!) and other various military buildings, even a giant cannon. And eventually we got to the ocean which reminded me of home, though perhaps with higher cliffs. Finally we crossed the beach and went through a short section of woods and were back at the car. It was a perfect day for a walk and I'm sure we will go out there again for more exploring.