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!

This morning, we attended Torah Study and services at Shir Hadash, almost as easily as if we’d been at home.

After services, it seemed like the most appropriate place to eat would be a Jewish deli – all of the friends we’d visited on the trip had praised Sherman’s Deli in Palm Springs, so we drove there and had a nice meal. We arrived at the tail end of the lunch rush; they offered immediate seating inside or “soon” outside, and we went for the inside seating. It was a lot more crowded than the place we ate yesterday! The food was better, too – Diane and I split a Reuben and a piece of cheesecake.

We’d made reservations at the Palm Springs Art Museum and arrived five minutes before our time slot. They took our temperature and scanned our tickets, but I don’t think they looked at the time. We’d been at the museum on our previous visit, so we concentrated on the temporary exhibits. There were two with Agnes Pelton paintings (one of her landscapes and one of her Transcendentalist paintings) and one called “Gerald Clarke: Falling Rocks”. Clarke is an Native American artist whose works use “humor and wit to expose historical and present-day injustice” – I really liked the exhibit.

Downtown Palm Springs was hopping – except for masks, you really wouldn’t have thought anything unusual was happening. Restaurants were busy, people were talking and walking, and it was a lively scene indeed. It was hot and we were thirsty, so we stopped at the first place we saw that said they sold water – it was a head shop, Can Be Done Well! They had a cooler full of unenhanced beverages, and the person behind the counter was friendly – what’s not to like?

There’s construction going on in front of the Palm Springs Art Museum. Actually, it’s NOT going on – the area was excavated a while ago and is being used for art installations until the construction proceeds further. The biggest installation is David ÄŒerný’s “Crawling Babies” – it is certainly an eye-catcher!