We left Palm Desert at 10:30am; we weren’t in a rush because we only planned to go halfway home tonight, staying overnight at the Residence Inn Goleta.

We almost stopped for date shakes one last time at Hadley Fruit Orchards but there was major construction on I-10 at the Morongo Trail exit and I couldn’t get into the right lane quickly enough to get off the highway!

Lunch was at Zait Bistro in Fontana, chosen by looking at Yelp after we’d gotten off the highway to stretch our legs. Diane had Chicken Kebab and I had Chicken Shawarma – we ordered the small plates and had plenty of food. It was good, not great, but I’d go back if I were in the area.

Our next stop was a quick stop at Griffith Park in LA, which was supposed to be just long enough for Diane to meet her Fitbit’s demand for 250 steps per hour from 8am-5pm. Of course, I also checked my email as long as I was stopped – and there was an email from the travel agent handling our Iceland trip asking for us to fill out one more form – so I downloaded it, marked it up, and emailed it back to them. That took long enough for the next hour to start, so Diane got those steps in, too.

We stopped again to look at the beach near Ventura (and so Diane could get her 3pm steps). It was brisk, but very pretty.

After checking into the hotel, we drove to Goleta Beach – it was very brisk (we had to hold onto our hats), but that didn’t stop people from enjoying themselves, like these two:

There were flowers and birds, too, of course.

We got takeout from Kyle’s Kitchen – Diane had a very nice Ahi salad, while I went for a burger, fries, and a side Kale and Cranberry salad to be slightly healthful. The burger and fries were OK; the salad was very good.

Tomorrow, we go home!

We wanted to explore Palm Desert today, and thought that taking a walk in a park would be a good way to do it. Civic Center Park looked plausible, with paved walking paths. But when I got in the car and searched for “Palm Desert Hikes”, I didn’t see it – so we looked at the hikes that were nearby. The Cross Trail looked promising – the first comment on AllTrails called it a “very short easy trail”.

I should have looked at the description on AllTrails instead of the comments. The description calls it “moderate”, notes the length as 2.3 miles out and back, with 613 feet of elevation gain. We were wearing sneakers – our hiking boots would have been more appropriate. And I parked where I saw a bunch of cars soon after I turned off the highway, about half-a-mile from the trailhead – those cars belonged to houses in the neighborhood near the trail; there was plenty of parking at the trailhead.

The trailhead gave us a clue about what to expect – it was dry and rocky. After about 25 minutes, we turned around and returned to our car; then we drove down to Civic Center Park which was, as advertised, green and loaded with walking paths. And flowers. And waterfowl.

We wanted date shakes with lunch, so we drove to Shields Date Farm, only to find a one-hour wait for a table. We didn’t want to wait that long; a Yelp search showed the Big Rock Pub a few minutes away and it was a good choice, even though we were limited to their Sunday brunch menu. I had chicken and waffles and Diane had a Farmer’s Omelet, both tasty. Adult beverages were also consumed.

And then we went back to Shields for the date shakes!