Neil and Sandra's Roadtrip to Palm Springs Day 4

Day 4
We both had a great night’s sleep – very quiet, we had a hard time getting out of bed at 9:30AM! As discussed the night before we toddle off to Sherman’s across the street from the Hilton. Sherman’s is a New York style deli and came recommended by our dentist back in Santa Rosa. Wow what a treat – the menu, décor and feel of the place is definitely New York – though the employees are a lot more friendly – oh well you can’t have everything. The Corn Beef Hash was sublime, hands down the best I’ve ever had – Sandra’s fork keep reaching across the table and was able to regularly breach my weak defenses. We decide to come back to Sherman’s tomorrow and stock up before hitting the road.

Back at the hotel we change in to swimwear, lather in sunscreen (well I do) and head for the pool. The whole pool area is practically deserted which is great, given my aversion to people. We find two loungers and rearrange them so one is in full shade for me and one is in full sun for Sandra – gee we sound like a couple of perennials. Intermittent dips in the cool pool followed by lying around reading on the lounger – absolute heaven! Drat other people are arriving – but still only about 6 couples, I happen to notice the sign by the pool that says its maximum capacity is 117 – so I should be OK.

Interestingly one of the couples has brought a wee dog; Sandra engages the gentleman in conversation and learns they had to pay $75 / night for their dog to stay in the hotel. One of the other guests chimes in that she had in fact only paid $75 / night. I’m not sure if she should be offended or delighted?

By mid afternoon Sandra is sufficiently fried and I have put a big enough dent in my excellent book that we head back to the room for a light snack. After changing we decide to head into town on the hunt for that perfect latte. We walk up and down the main street but are disappointed to find that Starbucks looks like the only viable option – not again. By the way it’s still really quite hot – in the low 90s, and we learned last night that tomorrow (the day we leave) there is to be a major cooling trend and the temperature will be in the mid 80s for the rest of the week – oh well.

We plan to head back to downtown later tonight for dinner.

Palm Springs on a Monday night is even deader than Palm Springs on a Sunday night as many restaurants take Monday off. Actually, this town seems to have suffered more than its fair share of business closures due to the recession. We walked past one restaurant tonight and last night and couldn’t help but notice all the tables set and no customers; the staff were busying them selves folding napkins and playing cards.

We decide on the Kobe beef sliders at Ruby’s, a 50’s style burger joint – it’s actually a chain, we ate in one earlier this year at Huntington Beach and liked it. For some strange reason I’m in the mood for Clam Chowder; I should have know better than to order this item late in the evening at a burger joint. When the cup of soup arrives it resembles a slightly shrunken version of the Matterhorn at Disneyland – I proceed to show Sandra that I can stand french fries up in my soup. The sliders were great, we sat out on the sidewalk, the night was cool, the beer was cold – it was a good evening.

All in all we’ve had a great time on this trip; both hotels have been very good and we decide we’d stay at either of then again – though if we can get the “doggy rate” at the Hilton it would be hard to beat.