Palm Desert, CA

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the USA, is traditionally the start of the Christmas shopping season, where there are many big sales. It’s so named because it’s the day that retail operators start to turn a profit for the year.

My cousins and I, instead of shopping went for a hike to Whitewater Preserve, about a 30-40 minute drive from Palm Desert. It was a chilly morning in the Desert, but in the 50s, so I wore shorts and a down jacket. I didn’t realize that Whitewater was at elevation. It was 42 degrees (about 4 degrees Celsius) when we exited the car…and starting to rain. My rain jacket was in my car…40 minutes away. Three of the group turned back to go hiking instead in Palm Springs. I didn’t which was both good and bad.

The first hint of weather trouble was actually on the way out when we saw a big rainbow over the windmills. Rainbows always mean there’s rain somewhere.

The good was that the Whitewater Preserve is beautiful, with streams abounding, snow covered mountains in the distance (after the Thanksgiving Day rain, which turned to snow in the mountains). Once we got going it wasn’t too bad, especially when the rain stopped and the sun came out. However, on the way back it began to hail! There weren’t too many people around though by the time we returned it was much busier.

There was one stream that was a little trickier than others to cross…my cousin was trying to help with a piece of wood but then I spied a better area to cross (but it was a good thing I had waterproof shoes on.

In the afternoon my dad and I considered hitting tennis balls, but you can see it was pretty wet…but the snow capped mountains were a beautiful silver lining.

This is probably the last long blog for a bit.

Happy holidays everyone!