Turkey Day in Palm Springs - Thanksgiving SoCal Style

Yes...I'm alive, just a victim of a busy holiday week in which I had to work the first three days (GAH!), and since there's no justification in boring everyone (including myself) with the details of it all, here's the story of our Turkey Day, mostly in pix.

This year, my side of the family decided to rent a house in Palm Springs and spend the holiday together there.

My kids had the whole week off, but I didn't, so Walter took the kids up there on Tuesday, and I followed the next day.

(running note...I did the SDTC Turkey Trot on Tuesday night. I estimated that I'd finish the two mile/8 lap trot in 22:15. I finished in 19:46. So, I guess I have no skill at all for estimating how fast I run. Congrats to both Edith and Stoney for coming withing 4 seconds of their estimated times. Both won turkeys!)

The drive to Palm Desert on Wednesday, which should have taken no longer than three hours but ended up taking over five, wasn't much fun, but when I got there I discoved the house was lovely and the weather was perfect, even by desert standards...

Just a little place in the desert...

Day 1 - Thanksgiving
Walter agreed to run for awhile with me on Thanksgiving morning (in some attempt to offset the amount of calories to be shortly consumed), but we took our sweet-little-time and by the time we started running, it was almost 9:00 and getting pretty warm, so I pretty much nixed doing the 10 mile run I'd planned on doing for Alissa's Virtual Turkey Trot, especially since that also meant that I'd be gone for a couple of hours, and I did have some cooking to assist with.

In fact, I'm not really sure how far we ran, or for how long, because about a mile in, of course, my Garmin, which was not fully charged, died. Best I can figure from MapMyRun is that I ran somewhere near 5.5 miles, and it took about an hour...which seems a little fast, but I was running with Walter, so I suspect that while we were running together, we were running faster than my usual plodding pace.

Anyway, by the time I got home, the kids were in the pool.

Cousins taking a break in the spa

85º outside, pool heated to 90º, so the kids spent the weekend in the pool/jacuzzi.

Bro-in-law getting some "work" done poolside.

Walter and I enjoying a moment on the pool-deck.

My sister with "the bird" (yes, she was cooking in a bikini!)

Yes, it's a stick of butter on top

We did "dress" for dinner...and opted for paper plates, so much easier on the cleanup.

Walter...cleverly alternating wine with Gatorade. He swears that it wards off hangovers...hmmmm

Day 2 - Recovery

Day 2 of the Virtual Turkey Trot...I was defintely in recovery mode due to the stuffage and wine from the previous day, but I ran another 4.5 miles miles anyway, giving me a two day total of 10 miles and a two day time somewhere under 2 hours. Since I was running about as fast as a stuffed turkey, I stopped to take some photos of my environs.

Nice horse trail that I ran on...very forgiving on the knees and feet

Me and some grapefruits...I'm talking about the tree...geeesssshhhh people!

Later that day, we went to hit some golf balls. That's Walter, DramaGirl, Cousins and Bro-in-law, who was everyone's favorite golf coach!

OK...some words about golf ettiquite. What is up with the dress code rules? We went to a PGA West "private" courses...just to hit some balls on the driving range and were told we couldn't because we weren't wearing colared shirts...WTF is up with that? I mean, I guess I understand the dress code on the course, but on the DRIVING RANGE?

Whatever... If nothing else, Palm Springs has golf courses every other block, so we found a muni-course where they didn't care about our t-shirts (or that my 6-year old neice was wearing flipflops).

Yes...Palm Springs has A LOT of golf courses...oh and drug stores. If you ever need a golf course, or CVS, or Walgreens, or RiteAid, then Palm Springs is your kind of place.

Cousins watching movies on the bed. What is a better end of day than that?

Day 3 - Packing up and the drive home

After a very leisurely morning we finally had to pack up and get back home.

What is a "last morning" without lots of "last" family photo shots?

The whole crew...sans my parents, who'd already left

After lots of goodbyes and photos and hugs, we set on our way back to San Diego. Our plan this time was to go over the mountain into Temecula, then south on 15. I kept thinking I SHOULD have gone this route on my way to Palm Springs as it is shorter, but it's also some two lane mountain roads, so I opted for the multi-lane freeways (as did many others BTW). In any event, we thought that we'd go the short route on the way back.

We really weren't expecting this...

It was snowing on the pass over the San Jacinto Mountains...Carry Chains? hmmmmm.

Gotta love So.Cal - Pool in the morning, snow in the afternoon!

That's Walter after he and I discussed what we should do--turn around and go the freeway route through Riverside, or chance it. My car has AWD, so I forged ahead, then called him to let him know I though he could make it as the roads really weren't THAT bad.

In any event, we eventually made it home...in the rain. Can you say weather? We got to experience all sorts of weather this weekend, that's for sure.

So...a big thanks to my sister for putting the whole plan for getting together in Palm Springs in motion. It was a huge success and we all had a great time!

I'm tapering this week (as if every week hasn't been a taper for me recently), because next Sunday is the Las Vegas RnR 1/2 Marathon, so Walter and I are off to Vegas on Friday.

I'm off to catch up on some of your blogs now.