An Off-Festival Guide to Palm Springs and Beyond

Details: Parent Category: Travel Info; Category: Travel Feature; Published on Monday, 28 December 2009 15:10; Written by Laura Blum

For a while there, Palm Springs was looking pretty creaky -- God’s Waiting Room in the desert. Rat Pack martinis had long since yielded to frat boy kegs, and the only Hollywood celebrities in sight were retirees or golfers. The Palm Springs International Film Festival signaled the town’s revival when curtains came up two decades ago, and it’s since reupped its mid-century glam. Nowadays the stars are dropping out of the skies.

Little else is. Girdled by mountains, Palm Springs spots 354 sunny days a year, and what passes for winter here means lowest temperatures well above freezing. So it’s no surprise that the Festival – which unfolds in January – has become part of a larger travel route for adventurers lured as much by the films as by the sun-dappled canyons and parks. Before, during or after the PSIFF (this year’s edition runs January 5-18, 2010), festival-goers can work off their popcorn amid Palm Springs’ retro facades or out in the Coachella Valley wilds. Tramway Gas Station Palm Springs

For a taste of California Modernism, the Tramway Gas Station is as good a place as any to begin surveying Palm Springs’ classic buildings of the late 40s-60s. Tricked out with a flying-wedge roof, the 1965 landmark at the northern edge of the city now serves as the Palm Springs Visitor Center. Its co-architect, Albert Frey, also crafted a glass and aluminum retreat for himself west of Tahquitz Canyon Way and a home for Coca-Cola bottle designer Raymond Loewy.

There’s also the Kaufmann House, Richard Neutra’s steel, stone and glass affair from 1946 considered a gem of the International Style. Twin Palms, the Rancho Mirage house Stewart Williams fashioned for Frank Sinatra and, as it turned out, for Ava Gardner, is yet another desert rose to behold. The 1947 vintage home and piano-shaped pool can be rented for a cool $2,700+ a night.

The local gallery scene has traditionally favored T-shirts, seascapes and things Southwestern, but in recent years Palm Springs has sprung several alternatives, notably along Palm Canyon Drive. One is Galeria Dos Damas Dos, which owner Robert Menifee devotes to new and emerging California and Mexican artists. Another is former Disney suit Randall Erickson’s space in the Campbell building, specializing in such artists of the Americas as Rufino Tamayo and Roberto Matta. Native American art gets a fair shake at the Palm Springs Art Museum, whose permanent collection also dangles the work of Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler and Edward Ruscha, among other modern and contemporary artists, sculptors and architects from the West Coast and around the country.

A different sort of cultural shrine honors the indigenous art of living. At the 52-acre oasis of Two Bunch Palms, this translates as spa treatments for stressed Hollywood types. Scarface himself -- Al Capone – allegedly took the artesian mineral waters here.

Southern California has plenty of eye-bugging scenery, but the High Desert country of the Mojave probably takes it for topography. Joshua Tree National Park, an hour’s drive northeast of Palm Springs, makes hanging out with rocks and plants considerably more fun than it sounds. This is especially true for the eponymous Joshua trees, which are among the few living things in Southern California that win points for their advanced age.

The easiest and most scenic way to hit Joshua Tree, the comparably pristine Santa Rosa Mountains and the palm oases of the Indian Canyons is via ecological tour company Desert Adventures. (They also do a pre-dawn run to San Andreas Fault.) If this outing isn’t in the cards, a less eureka but still creditable alternative is The Living Desert. Gazelles, zebras and meerkats jazz up its nature conservancy -- as do desert plants its Palo Verde Garden Center -- a mere 15 miles southeast of Palm Springs.

An hour south of town on Highway 111 is the Salton Sea, an unlikely inland ocean that flowed from an engineering goof back in 1905. California’s version of the Dead Sea is salty enough to buoy water skiers and swimmers, assuming January’s mercury isn’t a deal breaker. Nearby Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is California’s largest tax-paid park. Hopping with critters from jackrabbits and coyotes to chuckwalla lizards and kangaroo rats, its 600,000-acres are also a bird nut’s Eden, with 150 flapping species. For goat lovers, the San Jacinto Mountains come warmly recommended. Palm Springs’ Aerial Tram climbs the 8,516 feet to the top of San Jacinto Peak for a trek along the trails and down to a wildlife preserve.

If the desert exploits rev the appetite, 16 miles west of Palm Springs the Morongo Band of Mission Indians run Hadley Fruit Orchards, home of the original trail mix. Or hell, if just reading about it all has the stomach growling, order online!

Tramway Gas Station
Palm Springs Visitor Center
2109 North Palm Canyon Drive 
Palm Springs, CA 92262 
760-778-8418 
Raymond Loewy House
600 Panorama Road
Palm Springs, CA

Kaufman Desert House
470 West Vista Chino
Palm Springs, CA 

Twin Palms
1000 Frank Sinatra Drive,
Rancho Mirage, CA
Contact HomesRun Inc.
866-370-5343
http://www.sinatrahouse.com/press/tc.pdf

Galeria Dos Damas Dos
388 N. Palm Canyon Drive
Palm Springs, CA 92262
760-416-2186

Randall Erickson Contemporary Art
436 N. Palm Canyon Drive
Palm Springs, CA 92264
760-416-9660

Palm Springs Art Museum
101 North Museum Drive
 Palm Springs, CA 92262-5659 (760) 325-7186
www.psmuseum.org

Two Bunch Palms Resort and Spa
67425 Two Bunch Palms Trail
Desert Hot Springs, CA 92240
760-329-8791
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Joshua Tree National Park
74485 National Park Drive  
Twentynine Palms, CA 92277
760-367-5500
www.joshuatree.org

Desert Adventures
74-794 Lennon Place, Suite A
Palm Desert, CA 92260
888-440-5337
www.red-jeep.com

The Living Desert Zoo & Gardens
47900 Portola Avenue
 Palm Desert, CA 92260-6156 (760) 346-5694
www.livingdesert.org

Salton Sea
100-225 State Park Road
North Shore, CA 92254
760-393-3052
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.parks.ca.gov

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
200 Palm Canyon Drive
Borrego Springs CA
760-767-5311
www.abdsp.org

Mt. San Jacinto State Park
Mt. San Jacinto State Wilderness
800-777-0369
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.parks.ca.gov

Palm Springs Aerial Tramway
One Tramway Road
Palm Springs, CA 92262 760-325-1391

Hadley Fruit Orchards
800-854-5655
48980 Seminole Drive
Cabazon, CA 92230
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.hadleyfruitorchards.com