Guest Author: Oma The week has flown by, and suddenly we are winding things up on the last day.  Since the forecast was for the 90’s in the afternoon we decided to go back to the zoo in the morning and see the Living Desert side of the facility.  

Steven wound himself up for the day by running before the rest of us had awoken and had breakfast.  He claims that it “gives him energy and pumps him up for the rest of the day.”  Eyeroll.  Not all human beings have the same metabolism or reticular activating systems.  That said, he arrived back from his run sweaty and extremely cheerful.  Having lived with a few grumpy people in my life, I have to admit that this is a desirable, and enviable, trait.

We arrived at the zoo early and were able to catch the end of the giraffe chat.  Two giraffes were showing off for the chatting keeper by bobbing and weaving around.  The spectacular awe of giraffes never gets old and it was an inspiring way to begin the zoo excursion.

I decided that I wanted to see the San Andreas Fault exhibit which was a bit of a hike away so with the blessing of the slow-moving trio I spun off and headed for that.  Well.  Not until I arrived at said exhibit was it mentioned that the San Andreas loop was permanently closed due to rock slides and other geologic dyspeptic movements.   Choking down disappointment at not being able to add to my natural disaster anxiety disorder, I headed on to see the eagle loop exhibit.  Not sure if it was naptime or the animals were nocturnal but the badger, bobcat, mountain lion, and caracal were all sleeping.  The peccary exhibit included babies called piglets, although the info board stated that the peccary is not a pig. What??  Then why do they call the babies piglets??

 By this time the slow-moving toddler herd was arriving at my destination and from there we moved en masse through the rest of the Living Desert.  I found out that while I was suffering San Andreas Fault disappointment, the trio had feasted on soft serve ice cream.  Crushed, I continued on, putting on a happy, if hungry face.  Grandmothers must tread lightly in life. 

Oddly enough, the Living Desert has in its midst a carousel.  A non sequitur.  Nevertheless, we detoured so Vera could ride this relic of circuses past when animals were abused and displayed shamelessly.  Actually a carousel is one of the better memories of circuses because no animals were harmed in its construction and it is a delight to little children.  Lib and Vera rode a camel while Steven snapped countless pictures.  It was a good way to end the zoo excursion.

Except, that while Steven was distracted by navigating through a teaming mass of school children, Vera decided to chuck her hat and it was not noticed until exiting the zoo.  Mother and father took off running on the missing hat quest – I have to say it was rather amusing to watch the frantic seeking which lasted a good ten minutes.  The hat was found, but not before the parents returned breathless and sweating like pigs.  Ahh. Karma, for smugly feasting on soft serve without me.

For lunch we stopped at a little diner that served grass fed hamburgers and delicious homemade rolls and fries.  By this time the heat had begun to roll in, so we returned to the AirBnB and took naps.  Well, three of us did.  Steven, with his extraordinary joie de vivre swam, read, and reveled in his electronic world.  He also, I might add, packed up an incredible amount of unpacked luggage in anticipation of an early departure and chaotic morning.  Kudos to him. 

It has been a fun week.  I am always awe-struck by the geology and climate of these new places that we visit and thankful to be included in the adventure.

I thought Oma should be our guest blogger especially after saying “I wasn’t really paying attention to where we were going.” So without further ado….

Well Oma decided to let her hair dry in the desert breeze so I will take back over. She is in her lounge chair, beach cover up on, and hair in rollers- true movie star style. For threat of my life I am not posting the pic, however, I’ll definitely be saving it in my “blackmail folder”. Chris- let me know if you need a copy.

Steven got up early to run the Art Smith Trail. He somehow has an over-abundance of energy. By the time he arrived back Oma and I had the bags packs and water secured. We drove to Indian Canyon to hike the Andreas trail to see an oasis. After paying for the entrance we snaked our way through the desert. The oasis was clearly visible in the distant. It was very close to what one would imagine, a cluster of palm trees with running water. Despite being what I imagined it was still breathtaking. We did a one mile hike and, not learning from the previous day, we had Vera start out hiking while Steven carried the litter. We hiked through the oasis with a running stream next to us and lush palm trees overhead. The trail began to head uphill and out of the oasis. The views were spectacular looking out over the canyon. We came across an influencer couple (instagram variety) who were setting up various photo shoots along the way. We held our breath as they obliviously almost walked directly into a cholla cactus. We did learn from yesterday and remembered the snacks!! Vera walked a good half mile before resorting to the carrier and snacks.

Back in the car, we decided to drive a bit further to Palm Canyon and a promised waterfall. The roads were twisty, curvy and I was thankful for our GINORMOUS automobile until we reached an area called Split Rock. The road went in between a rock wall and a gigantic arrowhead rock and it was a tight squeeze for sure. The truck has an interesting arcade style feature in which the seat vibrates if it thinks you are going to strike something. I have no idea how this is a safety feature because while nerve-wrackingly trying to drive through a rock having my bum bum vibrate made it all the more stressful. After squeezing through we drove to the top of the overlook and had Steven recon the area. The waterfall was dried up so we packed back up in the car and headed into Palm Springs.

We settled on a Mexican restaurant for lunch and feasted on typical mex food and margaritas. Back at the homestead naps were in order. Of course after naps we utilized the pool and then decided to stay in for dinner.

We started off early to avoid the heat since we knew we wanted to go to Joshua Tree National Park. Thankfully the temperature had dropped overnight and the park is 5000 feet higher than Palm Springs, so we ended up with wonderful cool, sunny weather for our visit. After an hour-long drive we made it to the ranger station near the west entrance of the park. At the ranger station we made sure to collect the mandatory park patches and a few souvenirs.  From there we headed onto Park Drive to see the sights. The park’s namesake trees can be ancient: some are a thousand years old. The landscape is surreal. The trees have a Dr. Seuss like feel and are spread out across a large open valley. There are huge rock formations that seem gravity defying with boulders haphazardly piled on top of more boulders. Clearly, this is a rock climbers haven and looking up at the massive rocks one often saw a figure belaying someone below. We decided on the Hidden Valley trail, a one mile loop. In a rookie mistake we had Vera start out hiking while Steven carried the litter. Vera was so overwhelmed with the number of rocks (one of her favorite things) and all of the things to see that our pace was leisurely to say the least.

Vera’s stamina waned and it was at the point we realized we left snacks in the car. As we got her in the carrier and a meltdown approached, Steven remembered he had a secret stash of Cheerios (what a pro!) and we continued our hike while Steven blindly handed Cheerios over his head back to Vera. The hike definitely heated up. After the hike we headed to a park bench for lunch and to rest our legs.

We decided to drive to Keys View which is 5,185 feet high to give a spectacular view of the Coachella Valley. It was a quick trip out of the car and back in.

Continuing on the winding road we decided to stay in the car while Steven checked out the Cholla Cactus garden. We were advised at the ranger station to not take our toddler to this attraction. The stop had many warning signs and a first aid kit complete with a set of pliers.

We made it back to the AirBnB and despite being overly tired, Vera did not nap and was introduced to ping pong.

For dinner I had suggested to Steven that we settle on a frozen pizza since everyone seemed wiped and multiple people skipped out on naps. However, we decided to eat out after all and Steven and I began researching allergy friendly options close by. We settled on a bistro. Described as “modern California cuisine” we thought a bistro would be casual dining with good ambiance. It turned out to be very upscale and we were definitely not. They did have the kids option of mac n cheese but Vera settled on the duck leg and breast confit with a sweet potato puree. We were worried about a two year old at a high class establishment until the guitar player started. The guitar happens to be Vera’s favorite instrument and pretty soon she was dancing to the music and playing her air guitar. She did extremely well and really liked the duck. At home we got ready for bed and Aunt Em serenaded us on her own guitar before hitting the hay.

Vera had a bit of a sleep in (8:00) so we had a leisurely breakfast before heading to the Living Desert Museum. (Steven and Oma were both up super early, so they got plenty of coffee and book time). The name is a little misleading as the “museum” is actually a zoo. Vera loves giraffes so a must see stop was the giraffe feeding station. She was super pumped to feed the giraffe salad (three pieces of lettuce). The giraffe enclosure was picturesque, with a grassy ridge and trees and the illusion that it continued on all the way to the mountains beyond.

The zoo lays claim to several animals, that according to Oma, make excellent scrabble words (addax, oryx, kudu ).Vera had never seen a camel before and I wasn’t sure I had either so that became our next stop. On the way we saw a ankole longhorn cattle . This guy caused us all to take pause. It also started many questions. What was God thinking? Does his neck ever get sore? After a slight detour we made it to the camels. They were large, furry, and had a hump. Everything you’d expect from a camel. The camels were probably used to the heat but we were not so vanilla and chocolate soft serve was our next stop. We continued on past African Wild Dogs (they had puppies), Meerkats, and eventually Bighorn sheep. The sheep’s enclosure had a small rocky mountain in it, and we spied a fully-horned male jumping around near the top. There were also several lambs and their mothers wandering by at close range. The baby sheep made a good excuse to snack on some oranges, and then we moved on to a playground that had a sprinkler and a tunnel. Steven decided to take Vera in the tunnel and after getting a bit stuck they both made it out. At this point the boiling heat, lack of shade, and walking started to get to everyone so we made a hasty retreat to the car. One ten-minute trip later we were eating turkey wraps and then the ladies of the house turned in for a long nap while Steven did more reading and coffee drinking. Post-nap it was once again pool time while Steven did his run, and then after dinner we ended the night with a couple rounds of the card game Sushi Go and some glasses of wine.

Saturday started with a reasonable wake-up time and a leisurely breakfast, as for once we booked a flight that didn’t leave at dark-o-clock (and even more astonishingly, we actually packed everything ahead of time).

The Seattle Crew landed in Palm Springs to balmy weather and a slightly tired toddler. The toddler, however, was very excited to see Oma and rushed us on our way. The meetup in baggage claim was adorable: shouts of “OMA OMA” and a giant hug put a smile on everyone’s faces.

As is the usual the car we reserved was not available so we upgraded to GINORMOUS, much to Steven’s disgust. The full heat of the desert sun was blaring down and after some finagling we got the car seat, luggage and ourselves into the truck. Steven started driving assuming I was navigating and I started zoning out assuming he had a plan. After a quick regroup in a parking lot we settled on a lunch spot and managed to park. There was nothing of note about the meal except that we all tried the Impossible Burger. We are all in agreement that it tastes like a burger, but not a very good burger. We packed it back up and headed to our AirBnB in La Quinta. The house is a sparsely modern decorated mid century modern with…. A pool. After a quick nap by all we decided we should start dinner when we heard knocking on the sliding door to the pool deck. Everyone went over to see Steven in his swim trunks waving. After making sure everyone was watching he cannon-balled into the water, and our responsible plan for food went out the window. We got everyone else changed and into the pool for a swim, then finally headed to the grocery, made a quick dinner and got to bed.

My loyal readers: After 6 years, the blog returns! Many trips have occurred in the meantime: to Hawaii (both the big island and Maui), many trips to Bend (for mountain biking), Whistler (Mountain biking and skiing), Vancouver (eating), Victoria (more eating), and countless backpacking, biking, and hiking trips across Washington. And of course we had a kiddo, made it to Disney World a couple times, detoured through San Diego (for the zoo!) and snuck in a few trips back to Indiana to visit the grandparents.

I guess we didn’t have the energy to write down what we did during those trips, but at last! We have arrived in Palm Springs California for a week of sunny respite from the Seattle rain, and we are ONCE AGAIN going to tell you all about it.

So buckle up and follow along as we bring you with us on our journey to Sunny California, featuring the Gigglebuns and with a guest appearance by Oma.

We were going to make today a more relaxed day since our feet and legs ached from the sightseeing the day before but once I got out of the hotel I was too excited to pass on any opportunities. We stopped for an espresso; Steven’s favorite part of Italy is standing in an Italian café sipping an espresso at the bar, and went to get tickets for the Cattedrale de Santa Maria del Flore. We went to the bell tower to get our tickets and started our day with a climb up the 270-foot tower. It was quite a climb with the stairs and corridor getting narrower the higher up we reached. Thankfully the top of the tower was like walking through a cage so although my fear of heights kicked in I felt somewhat OK. The view was spectacular. As we perused around the top of the tower and took in the sights of Florence from above, the tourists must have started flocking to the sights. We began our descent down the tower and it became increasingly busier. Eventually we were smooshing through people to get down the stairs. With my back against the wall and a person squeezing against me to get up the tower I wiggled my way down. I was glad when we reached the exterior and surprised at how long the line for the tower had become. We walked over to the cathedral entrance and the line was several hours long to get in. With the ticket we purchased at the tower we were able to gladly walk past everyone and right in the cathedral. The cathedral has strict dress code and since I was wearing shorts I had to purchase a surgical gown type thing to cover up which Steven, who was also wearing shorts, found amusing. The cathedral is impressive. The exterior of the church is decorated in green, pink and white marble. The interior is huge and beautiful. I found a prayer area, lit a candle and said a prayer for my parents (mama mia’s one request for my trip). For me, the most exciting part was seeing the dome, which I remember from my college art history classes. Filippo Brunelleschi designed the dome (duomo), which was the first Renaissance dome and took 14 years to complete. The rest of the cathedral had been built while waiting for someone to design and build the dome. Inside of the dome the Last Judgment was painted by Giorgio Vasari and Federico Zuccari. It is a truly beautiful painting. After getting our fill of the cathedral’s interior, we headed on down to the crypts below. Unfortunately, the crypts weren’t as interesting as we’d hoped; they’ve been heavily excavated and reworked, and little of the original stone structure remained visible. Instead, they’d put in false floors and ceilings, flashy museum-style displays, and a huge gift shop that took up most of the floor space. Classy. We looked around for 5 or 10 minutes, glancing at the various Medici graves that had been left on display, and then made our escape back upstairs.

From the cathedral we went to the baptistery, a separate building. The baptistery contains copies of the bronze doors created by Lorenzo Ghiberti which face the Duomo. The doors, which I also remember studying, were created by Ghiberti after winning a competition and beating Brunelleschi. The inside of the baptistery contains beautiful mosaic tiled floors and the mosaic Judgment Day Jesus giving the thumbs-up or thumbs-down judgment.

Our next stop (remember our relaxing day idea?) was the Duomo museum. Much of the museum was closed but the original Ghiberti Gates of Paradise bronze door panels were on display. They were pretty fantastic. We also viewed one of Michelangelo’s Pieta sculptures.

With the baptistery checked off our list, the only part of the Duomo complex that remained to be seen was the impressive dome itself. Here we would be able to climb up the double-domed structure, view the painted interior from up close, and get a view from the highest structure in Florence once we reached the top. Unfortunately, this was where our all-inclusive ticket we’d gotten at the bell tower finally failed us. The ticket would give us free entrance to the dome, but unlike all the other attractions it would not allow us to skip the lines. By this point (only late-morning, still), the line wrapped all the way around 3 sides of the cathedral, and the temperature was already north of 100 degrees. We took a look at the lines, and both agreed that baking in a stone oven of a square for three or four hours wasn’t our idea of fun, so we headed back to our hotel once again.

After refreshing ourselves at the hotel, we headed back out again in the afternoon to do some more exploring. We hadn’t eaten lunch yet, instead relying on some gelato we’d grabbed earlier, and so we crossed the river into the southern part of town and stopped at a bar in a square to get some paninis. This was where our Rick Steves knowledge once again paid off: in Italy you pay different prices depending on whether you eat standing at the bar, eat inside, or eat outside at the table. We had our cappuccinos and paninis at the bar, and got to hear some other tourists complaining that the price was higher than they’d expected when they ate outside. Once we’d finished our food, we crossed over to the Santo Spirito Church located on the same piazza to take a look inside. This was another huge, impressive cathedral, with an incredible marble altar that was nearly the size of our house. The church also contained another Michelangelo sculpture, this time a wooden crucifix. He made the crucifix when he was 17 and donated it to the monastery for letting him dissect bodies to learn from. After we spent another 50 cents on another prayer candle for momma mia, we headed out to explore the southern part of the city for a little while, which we’d avoided so far. This area was a little less touristy and quieter, although we eventually ran into the massive palace and garden complex that were once the domain of (you guessed it), the Medici family. We stumbled upon an outdoor theatre that had been assembled for Roberto Benigni’s nightly readings of Dante’s Inferno. I briefly contemplated purchasing tickets but the language barrier might have made for a long performance. We crossed over the Ponte Vecchio which is Florence’s famous bridge (and the photo from the previous post). It was packed full of gold and jewelry vendors. The bridge is lined with stores on either side. After our wanderings I believe we called it a night. It was a long day.

Dad’s gelato shop- 

I decided that my goal for today would be to view Michelangelo’s David sculpture. After a delicious breakfast at the convent and no nun nightmares the night before as I had feared, I asked the hotelier for suggestions for buying tickets for the Accademia where the David is located. He gave us brilliant advice. The line to get into the Accademia can be several hours long. He told us to go to the less crowed museum of San Marco and have the ticket agent there set up a reservation ticket for the Accademia and the Uffizi Gallery. Without waiting in a single line we had our tickets for both. With our reservation ticket we were able to bypass the long line and go straight into the museum. In addition to David, the Accademia contains several of Michelangelo’s unfinished works: The Prisoners and St. Matthew. It also contains a number of paintings, and a lot of historical artifacts from Renaissance Florence. The main hall where David is located is stunning. We walked out of a gallery and down a long hallway with a sky-lit dome illuminating the 17-foot statue. It was impressive. The statue was carved from a single piece of marble and took him more than two years to complete; he was 26 when he started carving it. We walked all around the statue and both agreed we were not expecting it to be so impressive. A smaller gallery contained many plaster busts and smaller statues that were used to create larger marble ones. The smaller statues have many nails in them used to measure the depth of the piece to build the larger marble sculpture. In the gift shop Steven talked me into purchasing a mini David statue for my desk at school. It’s a marble to-scale replica and will always remind me of the awe I felt looking at this sculpture.

After lunch at a pizzeria with misting sprinklers to escape the heat (we felt like vegetables in the grocery store) we went to the Uffizi Gallery for our next ticket reservation. Again we were able to bypass long lines and get right into the gallery. (We felt like traveling pros). This museum was much larger than our guidebook led us to believe and took longer than expected (partially thanks to Steven, my dear reader of every sign in a museum). The highlights of the museum included viewing Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Allegory of Spring, two paintings by DaVinci, many paintings by Lippi, several Michelangelo paintings, and Caravaggio, Giotto, and Titians as well.

I could not get over the lines to get into these museums. I kept thinking that people wait in line in Italy to see artwork like people wait in the US for amusement rides.  I also thought a lot about being an art teacher while looking at these works. My students comment quite a bit about not understanding why a work of art is so important. Usually they have just seen it via computer, if I’m lucky they’ve seen it in a book. Some of the pieces I saw today were just incredible and you have to actually see them in person to understand. I guess that is why tourists worldwide flock to these museums in the summer for that experience. I just feel incredibly blessed to have to have had this experience myself. My final thought about this. It is amazing that with all of the advances humankind has made we have stopped valuing artists as was done by society. There are not workshops and artists studying under masters. There are not great artists like Michelangelo who paint, sculpt, draw, and write poetry.

Enough of my thoughts. After a long day on our feet we went back to the convent for a little R and R. After feeling somewhat rested we went on our food hunt. We ended up at my favorite restaurant in Florence (so far), Trattoria Gargani. Unlike some of our other stops it was not overrun with tourists.  Steven had a pesto pasta dish and I had a spicy tomato sauce with spaghetti and tiramisu for dessert. While we were eating one of the waiters asked us where we were from. When we said the US he replied that he thought we were Northern European. He told us we were so lucky to live in a true democracy. It has been mentioned to us by our cycling guides that Italy is very corrupt. One guide mentioned that Rome is called the black hole where all the money goes. After having been in Germany the difference between the two countries was evident.  Italy seemed much more run down. Our waitress gave us two limoncellos while we paid our bills. I toasted my dad, the great maker of limoncello, and sipped on the digestivo.

After dinner we walked around town and found that in the cooler nighttime temperatures everyone is out and about. We made notes of places to visit during the day and called it a night.

On a side note- our convent has a very particular convent type smell. Not the incense church smell more of a moth balls and enclosed smell.

After waking up early we said our tired goodbyes to Eduardo, Jerry, Andy, Henrick and Massimo. Kris and Stacy were still sound asleep. Our taxi driver was extremely cheery and happy to have American tourists. He kept mentioning famous Italians from the area and asking if we had heard of them. One singer in particular he was insistent that we had to know him and played his CD fast forwarding through tracks sure that we would recognize it. At the train station we caught a train to Bologna and then to Florence. It is interesting that different languages give different names to cities. It Italian it is called Frienze which makes ordering tickets confusing. I feel like the native country name should be it for naming a city. We have found that the trains are not as reliable as in Germany. The departure time is an approximate time however the train might not arrive at all. After several hours in a high-speed train (which Steven was pretty excited about) we hopped a taxi to our hotel, a converted convent. The hotel was interesting. It is extremely quiet and the décor is what one would expect from a converted convent. We dropped our bags, got some lunch and headed back to the hotel. I instantly fell asleep for the most glorious air-conditioned nap. When I awoke I noticed a look of despair on Steven’s face. The post-adventure depression had hit him. While I was sleeping he was pouting that his dream cycling vacation had ended. We left the hotel room and did the only thing I could think of to pull Steven from his slump: we found a gelato shop. We walked around the city sightseeing, and were amazed (and appalled) at the amount of tourists. After having spent a week in quiet villages and country roads, Florence was a shock to our system as we navigated packed sidewalks and swarms of people. The entire center of Florence is overwhelmed with tourists, and none of the Italian charm we had come to expect was present. Instead, we ran into more people speaking English than Italian, and hordes of people hocking cheap toys and souvenirs. Even the food was different. Everywhere we turned we found “stereotypical” Italian food with high prices and poor quality.  And it was hot, oh so hot. We had thought it was hot in the countryside, but in the stone center of Florence it was even worse. Thankfully we had Rick Steves to guide us, and we eventually found a nice little restaurant slightly away from the main tourist attractions. I got my big chunk of lasagna I’d been craving all week (which I split with Steven), and then we headed back out to wander around a little more. We found that it was much more pleasant to sightsee in the evening, when it was cooler, so we walked around until dark and then retreated back to our first nights sleep in a truly air-conditioned room.