We spent a wonderful warm time in Palm Desert visiting Aviva’s mother and her friend Dave. The weather was really great, sunny and in the 90s for two days, high 80s one day and mid-80s the last day – truely spectacular!

Grapefruit growing in Dave's backyard

Growing next to Oranges of course!

One of Dave's cacti growing (well) by the pool.

We went to the Palm Springs Desert Museum – we seem to go every trip. Aviva had called the museum ahead of our visit and they gave us a private showing of 13 of the works of Morris Graves.

Aviva with the statue of Sonny Bono in Palm Springs

On the last day we went to the Moorten Botanical Garden at 1701 S. Palm Canyon Dr. in Palm Springs. The garden was small but very interesting – they have small habitats laid out along a nature walk surrounding the estate of the Moortens, who started this on their property over 66 years ago. They have over 3000 varieties of plants!

A cactus at Moorten Botanitcal Garden

We also drove up to Tahquitz Canyon. There is a guided tour for about 2 hours up the canyon to a 60 foot waterfall. We were too tired to go, but we did look around for a while.

Tahquitz Canyon, with the ranger station in the lower right corner.

And of course I read some books during the trip too – we had a great time!