Hello, Moorten Botanical Garden in Palm Springs, California

by   •   Travel
 

My stay in the Coachella Valley has approached its end. There was a bunch of stuff I did where I couldn’t really justify writing an entire blog post about it, and I might include some of it in a round-up or photo dump post at some point, but I do have one more dedicated post from the Moorten Botanical Garden in Palm Springs, California.

Admission was US$5.00, which I thought was a fair price relative to the size of the garden. There was a main outdoor garden, a cac­tarium, an event area, a shop with cacti and other goods for sale, a small collection of historical artifacts, and a bird cage.

The outdoor area of this botanical garden is fairly dense. I like getting nice photographs from optimal angles so I was orienting my body in peculiar ways, and I apparently managed to back my arm into one of the cacti and get thorned through my shirt. The worst part is that I didn’t even notice it had happened until I was prepared to leave the botanical garden, so I’m actually very curious how long I spent with a small set of cactus spines sticking out of my arm while walking through the garden.

It was extremely hot and sunny when I went. I’ve been waking up fairly late lately and the garden closes at 4 PM, so I ended up going in the afternoon when it was around the hottest time of day, before the sun set and the air temperature cooled down. There are a few small shaded areas and the cac­tarium is fully enclosed, so those were some nice spots to try and stabilize my body temperature before venturing back out into the sun.

There were two notable things that stood out to me. First was the fact that this was a very unique botanical garden due to its desert nature. When you think of botanical gardens, you usually think of fields layered with colorful flowers, but seeing everything layered with harsh, spiky cacti was an in­ter­est­ing sight. With that being said, cacti also bloom flowers, but in smaller quantities, so the fact that they were rarer and more sparse made the flow­ers even more appealing.

The second thing I liked was the contrast between the natural desert landscaping of the botanical garden, and the manually-introduced tropical palm trees along South Palm Canyon Drive and the luxury real estate surrounding the botanical garden visible in the distance. Seeing that I am a resident of Las Vegas and consider it to be my favorite city, I think it is unsurprising that I like strange things that seem a bit out of place, and having two opposite bi­omes right next to each other in parallel eyeshot of each other is definitely a very strange sight to see.

Below are some photographs taken all throughout the botanical garden that I thought turned out the best.

 

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Hello, Palm Springs Art Museum

by   •   Travel
 

While in Palm Springs of the Coachella Valley in California, I decided to check out the Palm Springs Art Museum and the Palm Springs Art Museum Ar­chi­tec­ture and Design Center. The two buildings are in walking distance of each other—about half a mile away down Palm Canyon Drive and Museum Way.

I took advantage of the free admission they have on Thursdays between 5-8 PM, funded by the City of Palm Springs. Cost of general entry would’ve oth­er­wise been US$16.00 for the main museum and US$10.00 for the A&D Center. A convenient thing about being free on Thursdays is that that’s also the day that VillageFest takes place in downtown, which was nice to check out after the museums.

It was obviously worth it for me because admission was free and it was a nice spot to check out while touring around Palm Springs. However, if you’re pay­ing for admission, that might not always necessarily be the case. I thought these art museums were about what I’d expect as average for an art mu­se­um—they weren’t particularly innovative or revolutionary, but they did have a decent number of unique pieces so that it wasn’t too boring for those who might not be fine art enthusiasts.

 

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Hello, Bighorn Overlook, Jack Rabbit, and Road Runner Trails in Rancho Mirage, California

by   •   Hiking, Travel
 

This past Saturday, I went for a hike in Rancho Mirage, a city in the Coachella Valley of Riverside County, California. Because it was the weekend, the park­ing lot of the City Hall was nearly empty, which was conveniently located right by the Bighorn Overlook Trailhead.

I started ascending the eight switchbacks to the overlook.

Once I got to the top, there was a little structure and some rock art.

The overlook also had a nice view of Rancho Mirage, with Thousand Palms and Palm Desert in the distance.

After taking in the sights, I continued west onto Jack Rabbit Trail.

Once I got near the western edge of the trail, I got some nice views of The Ritz-Carlton Rancho Mirage and Frank Sinatra Drive.

After crossing over Frank Sinatra Drive, I began hiking westbound on Road Runner Trail.

Interestingly, the moon was clearly visible in the distance.

After making it to the most northeastern point of Road Runner Trail, I had a nice view down Frank Sinatra Drive.

Continuing on the trail, I made it to the side of the Villas of Mirada.

This is a view to the west down Terrace Road.

Approaching the end of the trail, I was able to get a photo of the luxury homes in the Mirada Estates.

After completing the way out, I returned on Frank Sinatra Road back to the City Hall where I parked my pickup truck. In total, my hike was a little over 3 miles, which is the equivalent of just over 5 kilometers.

It was nice finally doing another moderately strenuous hike. I feel like I might have been a little unprepared for this one, though—it was sunny and over 90°F out­side (which is the equivalent of over 32°C), it was windy so the air quality wasn’t the best, and one liter of water was not enough. I was dripping sweat by the end and very thirsty, but I still felt refreshed and energized.

 

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Hello, First Original McDonald’s Museum in San Bernardino, California

by   •   Travel
 

I’m a fan of Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley, so I’m making another trip there to explore some more stuff that I didn’t have an opportunity to check out during my previous two visits. On my way there, I decided to take a rest stop in San Bernardino, California to check out the First Original McDonald’s Museum.

This museum is built on the site of the very first McDonald’s. Apparently, the land was bought out by the owner of Juan Pollo and now acts as an un­official hub for preserving the history of McDonald’s. It’s become a meme among my friends about how much I like McDonald’s, so I figured this would be a good spot to tour.

I ate a lot of McDonald’s as a kid, so this was pretty nostalgic. I didn’t really recognize many of the older Happy Meal toys, but it was very fun to see some of the older wrappers and packaging that I remember seeing and eating out of when I was single-digit age.

And for all the car and truck enthusiasts who have been leaving comments in my past blog posts asking if I am still driving the same pickup truck, yes I am. Here it is in the overflow dirt parking lot of the museum.

Unless you’re planning on becoming a McDonald’s franchisee or something, I wouldn’t really consider this to be a must-see tourist hotspot. With that being said, if you’re already passing through the area and have eaten McDonald’s throughout your life, I think this museum is a very compelling rest stop candidate.

 

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Hello, San Joaquin Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary in Irvine, California

by   •   Hiking, Travel
 

While I was in Orange County, California a few days ago for my dinner at The Capital Grille in Costa Mesa, CA, I decided to squeeze a bit more value out of already being in the area and visit the Irvine Ranch Water District (IRWD)’s San Joaquin Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary.

A few years ago when I was road tripping across the United States and living out of hotel rooms, I would regularly go out for walks and hikes to see new areas and explore nature. I haven’t really been doing that much lately, so I figured this would be a good opportunity to get some sun and fresh air again. I wouldn’t say a walk around the San Joaquin Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary really counts as a hike, but because of how warm it was, I still got a good sweat out of it.

 

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Photo dump from March 2024

by   •   General, Travel
 

March has been a fairly eventful month for me. I was home in Las Vegas for a portion of it, but also spent a good chunk of the month in Los Angeles and Boston.

While in Las Vegas, I met up with one of my friends who wanted to get some dinner at Winnie & Ethel’s in downtown. The online reviews for this res­tau­rant were surprisingly high, so I went in with high expectations, and I wasn’t disappointed.

This diner had a very interesting pricing model that aggressively encouraged you to order more food. For example, you can get one malted waffle for $8, but if you want to order three instead, you can get it for $12—only an additional $2 per waffle. The French toast had the same pricing structure. I ended up getting five malted pancakes for $13, which was only $5 more than had I only ordered one.

I also got a side of brûlée grapefruit. I was familiar with crème brûlée, but this was my first time ever trying brûlée grapefruit. It was a little bit difficult to scoop out the pulp and eat it, but overall, I liked it—it was sweet, it had an interesting texture, and it wasn’t at all sour like I expected.

I enjoyed having breakfast for dinner. We had a late dinner so we were the last ones out; here is a shot of the empty restaurant.

Here is professional, world-renowned, distinguished, prestigious, acclaimed, award-winning, illustrious hand model Billie-Rae showing off some sesame balls.

While in Los Angeles, I joined some friends and acquaintances for dinner at Shin-Sen-Gumi. We ordered a bunch of skewers.

For my main entrée, I got a negitama beef bowl.

Payment was tricky because most of the skewers were shared. In order to decide who covers the bill, we pulled up a horse race on YouTube and everyone picked a horse. We watched the horse race, and whomever picked the horse that came last had to pay for the meal.

You’d think that’s straightforward, but this video did everything in its power to make it as difficult as possible for us. Unsurprisingly, people don’t really care which horse gets last place, so the cameras only focus in on the leading horses. There were a few opportunities for us to catch who was in last place, but once the race neared the end, the scoreboard went away and none of the trailing horses were in the shot. We even tried to look up the official results on the league’s website, but they only listed the top five horses.

Eventually, we watched and re-watched the footage over and over again until we managed to take our best guess on which horse lost.

Towards the end of March, I flew to Boston, Massachusetts.

I was in Boston to attend PAX East and watch my friends’ shows at the convention.

The convention itself was fairly underwhelming, like usual. It wasn’t much different than any other convention, and because I personally wasn’t really in­ter­est­ed in waiting in long lines to be able to try some of the games on the exhibition floor, I was basically able to see everything in about a day.

With that being said, there was one interesting thing I did. Apparently there was an exhibitor that brought a bunch of cameras and laser pointers that could take three-dimensional models of people and turn them into statues.

This was intended to be used by cosplayers who want to memorialize their cosplay as a statue, but my friends decided to troll me and book me for a scan so they could turn my normal regular self into four different six-inch-tall statues that they could each have in their homes so that I could be spread out across the United States like Horcruxes.

After the final day of PAX East, I joined my friends at the Lookout Rooftop and Bar and had dinner in little insulated pods overlooking Fort Point Chan­nel and the downtown Boston skyline.

As it got later into the night, the buildings lit up for an even nicer view.

Here is what the interior of the bar looked like.

 

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