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April 6, 2006
Car Culture – Southern California and the desert, III
Lesson about the intersection of one interest group with another: There may be none.
At the Sunday Brunch, the Flyertalkers had a gift exchange. Suggested value was $10; I put in a few electronic gewgaws (wireless card, retracting cable) a wallet (the same kind as I use myself – I think it’s great) and one of the knitted hats I made. It was in a small anonymous red bag. I have no idea how it got picked first.
The geegaws didn’t seem to bother the poor fellow. The wallet confused him – apparently everyone assumed there must be more cash or a gift certificate inside, right? The he pulled out the hat and was utterly flummoxed. Knitters would have known that it was handmade, but this wasn’t a gathering of knitters. I apologized to him afterwards. Next time I’ll do what’s expected of me and slip in a few gift cards instead. It’s cheaper in a sense, and I’ll save my knitting for more appropriate occasions.
I had already checked out of the David Lynch Suites and had a few hours to kill, so two other fellows and I went on a drive suggested by Joe. “Go down 111 a few miles into Rancho Mirage until you hit Monterey or Highway 34 or 134. Turn right, towards the mountains. It’s beautiful up there.”
Monterey is a main intersection; the highway in question is route 174 towards Hemet and San Diego. Well, he didn’t say “you can’t miss it.” We didn’t have time to go too far, but the road wound mountains strewn with pebbles and boulders in a rocky landscape that was almost Biblical in imagery. A few miles up there is a turn off with a scenic view down into the valley.
The three of us drove back, one got dropped off at his hotel, a second drove to Ontario for his 7 pm flight and I went to Joe’s room so I that could change into a black t-shirt and jeans. That would have to pass for appropriate leather-bar drag. We all went to The Barracks.
Oh, the humanity.
I haven’t been to a bar that crowded in a while. I made it with the group about 10 feet on to the back patio, found a few square inches of room behind some sort of sign and slipped in there, having a pleasant conversation with “Dek” most of the time. I haven’t been to a leather bar in ages, either. As Mr. Semi-Fashionable, I must say: Bears are not my thing, though I have nothing against them, nor fur. I admit that I’ve never liked tattoos, but tattoos with hair growing out of them are the be-all and end-all of Yuck.
15 of us headed to dinner at the Red Tomato, a friendly and campy place with decent homey Italian food and Albanian lamb dishes. The Panzanela relish mentioned in the article is delicious; rather like gazpacho as a dip. One of the other guys recommended the lasagna, so I had it. Regarding camp – I forgot to mention it, but there was one waiter at Wang’s who took the prize – probably in his early 40s, dark skinned and a fading beauty who had something to say about everyone’s habits and orders and an ever so special way of pursing his lips. We ended up referring to him as “Bitter Waiter”.
I was taking the red eye that left Ontario at 12:30 am, so I left Palm Springs at 9:15. On the way home I finally figured out how the cruise control on the car worked and almost, just almost got the hang of driving so that I felt comfortable. Even late on a Sunday night with light traffic there was still one 15 minute delay right near I-15. I’m glad I left extra time. The Ontario airport isn’t crowded, but it also isn’t efficient; as I said earlier there are no check-in kiosks for jetBlue, so if you can use online check-in, do it. I slept almost all the flight home and arrived back sleep-deprived, but as with my last California weekend, having packed in a wonderful time.
One last random tip: Neutrogena sunblock is awfully good. I spent all day out in direct sunlight without burning or needing to reapply.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at April 6, 2006 7:27 PM
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