Dr. Forbush Thinks

“P.S. I Love You” was the tag line the first time I visited this tiny city in the desert more than twenty years ago. I didn’t see that slogan posted anywhere in the city when I visited it over the last few days. This time I went to Palm Springs for business, but the first time I went there to visit a girl. She had moved from Ohio to California following her parent’s dream of living in the desert. She took my heart with her. Now, twenty some years later both of us are happily married to different people and living thousands of miles apart. At least I know that to be true on my side of the equation.

Palm Springs has both changed and stayed the same. The mountains to the west of the city are still a tall and rocky moonscape of grey and brown. The mountains are so tall that the sun sets at about 3:00 PM as it passes behind this pinnacle. Therefore, sunset seems to last for hours with the sun behind the mountain, but the sky not quite so dark.

The downtown area isn’t much longer than 10 blocks of little shops and restaurants on Palm Canyon Drive with a few more scattered on the streets parallel to this road. And, of course there are the resorts and golf courses that lie further to the south and east of the city. If you like golf, or the resort lifestyle, then this is certainly the place for you. Since I don’t really care to much for either I force myself to find other things to do. This time I really didn’t have much free time so I mainly concerned myself with working, eating, running and sleeping.

As it turns out I had the chance to eat at three restaurants, sleep two nights in the Hotel Zoso, go on two hour-long runs and work the remaining time.  If anyone can relate to the Saturday Night Live skit that portrays a naïve couple visiting a portentous couple at their apartment will understand the Hotel Zoso. The Hotel is lined with close-up pictures of flowers enlarged to 28X36-inch portraits or larger. It wasn’t clear to me if they were photographs of flowers or photographs of paintings of flowers. The pictures all seem to be intentionally out-of-focus, however it isn’t clear whether it was truly intentional or just bad photography. However, if you remember to SNL skit the people at the Hotel Zoso believe with all of their hearts that if you don’t understand the importance of these “great works” then you shouldn’t being staying at the Hotel Zoso.

The rooms are very nice, after all I was told several times that they just put $20 million into the renovations of the Hotel Zoso. And a lot of the money must have gone into the 42” flat panel TVs that hang on the wall of every room. The bed is unusual as well, and if you don’t understand why a King size bed needs nine down pillows on it, then maybe you don't really belong in the Hotel Zoso.  The final annoying thing about the Hotel Zoso is the valet parking. And, obviously if you don’t understand why you need a valet to get your car from twenty feet away and bring it to you in less than fifteen minutes then you certainly don’t need to be staying at the Hotel Zoso.

My favorite part about the trip, besides the working part of the trip was the running. I woke up early each morning and went running. I am finally in good enough shape that I can run for an hour at a pretty good pace, and sightsee. Last year at this time I ran a 5K race and almost needed to be carried across the finish line. Yesterday I was able to wake up early, and run down Palm Canyon Drive for almost three miles without going off of sidewalk and without many busy streets to cross. No-one seemed to be awake at 6:00AM. After turning around I was able to find another road with a slight incline. I ran about a mile up the hill, then I turned around and ran back to the Hotel Zoso. Most likely I ran about 6 or 7 miles in about 65 minutes. The temperature was a little brisk, with a little breeze but it was generally quite nice. And at 7:15 I was able to use the Jacuzzi at the Hotel Zoso, which was quite nice because many Hotels don’t open their pools until 10:00AM or so.

We ate at a couple of nice places, one of which I need to mention only because of the difficulty in finding the restaurant. Palm Springs has a history of city leadership that disliked the idea of large signs advertising through out the town. The leadership wanted a more esthetically pleasing atmosphere that kept the quaint feel of Palm Springs by trying to restrain the commercialism. In fact, the first time I visited Palm Springs I stayed in a Hotel 6, because motels were not permitted in Palm Springs. I guess that is what happens when social conservatives go to the extreme and try to control the moral character of the town by restricting the building of motels within the city. But, the point is that a name does not make a moral character. I am sure that people have had extramarital sex in hotels as well as motels even if it doesn’t look that way from the outside. In fact, when I ran past the Hotel 6 that I had once stayed at I noticed that they had re-named it Motel 6. Apparently someone in the city leadership realized that the evil really wasn’t in the name. So, because of the history of these restrictions on the use of signs some places have very little signage in trying to keep with the tradition, even though the signs have gotten much bigger than the way it was twenty years ago. Therefore, in my case, of course lack of signage correlates with not being able to find a place. So, it took a couple of passes and a cell phone call to the restaurant in order to find the place with the 2-inch high 6-inch long sign. Hopefully they get a lot of repeat customers, because it would be difficult to rely on new ones.