Settling in – 2

Spoiler alert: no photos.

Spoiler alert: introspection and rambling.

I was going to title this post "Coping," but I reconsidered. Although coping appears to be the human condition at the moment. Many people around me are dealing with loss – terrible, painful issues concerning health, finances, loved ones, all of the above, some of the above. Others are dealing with the problems of excess: the Palm Desert house still isn't finished. The remodel is over budget. The Mercedes is on back order (there is a lot of money in he Coachella Valley). The kind of problems we all say we wish we had.

I would be a hopeless kvetch to describe my current situation as coping. A more apt description – and more challenging for me personally – is "being patient."

At the invitation of dear friends I drove to Los Angeles on Thursday to house sit their lovely mansionette in Chatsworth, a suburb of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley. It was a perfect opportunity for me to do some research on my business idea. As an added bonus, I was going to reward myself with a visit to the Getty Museum for yet more stunning blog photos. (I have low expectations for the art in the museum. It is the Getty, after all, but the building and grounds are reputed to be muy photo worthy.)

Friday morning, after seeing off my hosts who were driving to Santa Cruz to see their son graduate magna cum laude and cum laude – in a double major, no less – I took off in my car. My plan was to check out shops in Santa Monica and go the Getty.

It was 9:30 in the morning. Even with Friday rush hour, I gave myself until 2:30 PM to get to The Getty to wait out rush hour. Life was an adventure. I was revisiting old territory with a new perspective. I lived here for six years from 1988 to 1994. Banished was my conviction that LA is all seven circles of Dante's Inferno.

For about 15 minutes, I was able to maintain that illusion. And then I hit traffic. And stayed in traffic. Clogged traffic. On the freeway. On side streets. Everywhere. By the time I had finished in Santa Monica it was already 2:30 and I had done about an hour of shopping against 4 hours of sitting in traffic. It turned out I couldn't get to the Getty because both the main off ramp and the detour they directed me to were blocked. I made the twenty minute drive back to where I was staying in a little over an hour, stopped by Trader Joe's for dinner fixings, and retreated back to the pool and garden of the mansionette. Vowing not to venture over the hill again.

Saturday, I luxuriated in the lushness of the garden, went to a movie ("Rock of Ages" a guilty pleasure) and came back for more garden luxuriating. I got a text from a guy I had been communicating with and we agreed to meet for lunch the next day. My hosts got back that evening. We had a newsy visit before they hauled their tired bodies off to bed.

Sunday was the money shot. My hosts and I had a scrumptious and insanely healthy breakfast, I did a load of laundry (I am in-suite laundry deprived in Palm Springs), then took off to meet my potential new  acquaintance. We had lunch at Rive Gauche Cafe on Ventura Blvd (highly recommended) and talked. Turns out he worked for many years as a furniture salesman in Los Angeles. He was a font of useful information, and a nice guy as well. After lunch we sought out an Asian import store further down the boulevard where my hosts had purchased a buddha for their garden. The owner is a Thai-Chinese man from Korat, Thailand. He imports the southeast Asian equivalent of cottage furniture. Rustic, even whimsical statues, chests and tables that work very well as accent pieces in mega-mansion decor. Between him and my new acquaintance,  I got some valuable feedback about my idea.

I drove back to Palm Springs today and will continue doing research here. Clearly this business, if it is to be, is not going to spring full blown, Athena-like, from my head. It's going to take patience, persistence, and diligence (not my strongest suits).

Interestingly, my brief visit to LA (which is still all seven circles of hell, by the way) raised a few ghosts that will probably never be completely exorcised. They are less troubling now, but their spirits still cast a shroud over the city for me. I know I'll be going back, and it's fine for a visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

Palm Springs Aerial Tram Ride and Hike to Round Valley

A Swiss-built rotating tramcar gives up to 80 people a 360° view as they ride up the mountain.

From Wikipedia's entry on The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway:

 The twelve-and-a-half minute ride begins at the Valley Station at 2,643 ft (806 m) and passes up North America's sheerest mountain face through five life zones on its way to the Mountain Station at 8,516 ft (2,596 m) above mean sea level. Travelers start in the Sonoran Desert and arrive at an alpine forest.

View from the trail head

Actually, by the time you get to the tram parking lot you've already climbed 2,643ft from the valley floor. From the top station, it's another 1,500 ft and a six-mile hike to the top of Mt. San Jacinto which is at just over 10,000 ft. The temperature in Palm Spring was 89° at 7:30 am – heading toward the very high 90s. At the top of the tramway, the temperature was 65.° All of this within an hour, if your timing is good, from where I'm living.

Rock formations near the base station

If you end the journey at the mountain station, is enough drama for most people. The ride up in itself begs the use of spectacular and breath taking. There are panoramic views of the Coachella Valley and the desert cities from the deck of the top station. A short, but aerobic, and very vertical half mile walk out the back sets you in the middle of a tribe of rock formations jutting out of the bedrock like the emerging life forms they are.

Rush hour on the trail

But I didn't stop there.

My companion was a local man I met who enjoys hiking. Since I'd never managed to do it on previous visits, I wanted to be able to say I've taken the tram at least once. I would never have done the hike without company, and Jose was a perfect guide. I'm not used to level 3 hikes at 8,500 ft so we agreed to do the hike to Round Valley campsite – a 4.5 mile round trip. Joining us were at least a hundred other hikers in groups ranging from two to twenty we passed along the trail coming and going. ALmost everyone we passed said hello. I think the lack of oxygen makes people friendlier. Ages ranged from pre-teens to old farts like myself. Jose and I made the trek out in about an hour and a half, our pace slowed somewhat by my picture taking. Jose was very patient. I know I slowed him down, but by a half-mile into the hike I knew I was going to get my exercise for the day and made the wise decision to pace myself.

Why is this man smiling?

Up and back, we were on the trail almost three hours. It was visual overload. The air was intoxicatingly clean (and thin). I was pleased I didn't have a heart attack or just give out and need to be helicoptered out. The last half mile up that nearly vertical concrete path back to the station was the unkindest cut. By the end, my feet were providing an object lesson in not wearing old hiking shoes for the first time in 5 years on your first alpine hike is three years (My last mountain hike was more of a hill climb through the jungle. My (hyperbole warning) near death experience on that jaunt is recounted in an earlier blog that will disappear at the end of this month as part of the transformation of mac.com to iCloud.

Round Valley campsite.
No vacancy for the weekend

This hike was a walk in the park compared to that one. But jeezus, I was tired, and my feet ached, and the next day my legs felt like concrete, and my knees kept screaming at me, "you are not a young man any more."

I did it, and I'm glad. There are more photos on my Facebook page if you are curious.

Last night, as part of my recovery, I went to see "Snow White and the Huntsman." It is rich visually. The performances are energetic. The story a mythic melding of the brothers Grimm and Jean d'Arc. Another in a compelling string of female heroines. But why do our myths still offer up resolution as redemption through violence? I know it's viscerally exciting, but is it really an evolutionary step forward to portray women behaving like men? Is our new mythic hero Victor Victoria on steroids and in need of anger management counseling? I wonder.