Post Parade - Off to Palm Springs

     After the Rose Parade, we rented a car and went to Palm Springs.  It only rains 15-18 days per year in Palm Springs, so you are almost always guaranteed a sunny visit.  The winters are mild with mid-day temperatures reaching 65°to70° - except when Bev and Mike come to town.  Temperatures during our visit were lower than average, and it poured for two days dropping a little over one inch of rain.  The total annual rainfall for this area is six inches per year, and we were there for one sixth of it.  The icing on the cake was the 4.4 magnitude earthquake that shook us out of bed at 6:42 a.m. on January 6, 2016.  The epicenter of the quake was 22.5 miles away in Banning, California, and it was not strong enough to do any damage; but, from where I lay, it sounded and felt like bouncing over a bumpy road in a dump truck.
     In spite of it being too cold to go into the heated pool and having to drive through flood water up to our axles, I liked Palm Springs.  The mid-century modern thing they have going on is fun. Downtown has nice shops and restaurants.  It's a very gay friendly place, but that's about it for diversity.  The place is lily-white, the two Indian casinos not withstanding.  We used a free bus service (Thursday-Sunday) called The Buzz to access the downtown area where parking can be scarce.  After we covered downtown, we used our rental car for more distant adventures.

This is what you see coming into Palm Springs - the San Gorgonio Wind Farm.  This is the oldest wind farm in the United States.
http://www.palmspringslife.com/Palm-Springs-Life/Desert-Guide/August-2013/Palm-Springs-is-Home-To-Oldest-Wind-Farm-in-US/

I managed to get into the spa only once.