[Adapted from email travelogue, sent Friday, November24 at 12:23 pm.]

Sunday, November 19: Los Angeles

Looking back down the one-block, super steep track of "Angels Flight," the famous Los Angeles system of two cable cars that pull each other back and forth at a 33° angle and has a very spotty history of service since it first opened in 1901—it was closed between 1969 and 1996; then again between 2001 and 2010; with various periods of operation thereafter. During the years Shobhit lived in L.A. between 2010 and 2016 we never saw it operational, so we were excited to see it running when we went to do a bit of shopping at Grand Central Market across the street from its lower end. It's only a dollar a person, and while it's hardly a long route, given the steep angle of the track and even the car itself, it's a pretty fun ride.

Shobhit's niece, Shivy (pronounced "Shivvy"), who stayed with us through the holidays last year, had suggested she come out and spend Thanksgiving Week with us in Seattle. Faith, Shobhit's friend who lives in Palm Springs, had also called to suggest we come down to spend Thanksgiving with her—which was last did two years ago. We suggested to Shivy that she fly to LAX from her home in Maryland on the same day we flew from SeaTac, after which we would all drive a rental car together out to Palm Springs, and she was all about it. Perfect!

Shobhit's and my plane landed at 2:15, but Shivy's didn't land until 6:30, giving Shobhit and me a good four hours to pick up the rental car and then just hang out in Los Angeles—hence the visits to Grand Central Market and Angel's Flight downtown. Then we returned to LAX to pick up Shivy in the rental car, and before we drove out of town, we stopped at a local pizza joint for dinner.

We had actually driven to a specific intersection where Shobhit's favorite taco truck sets up in a has station parking lot every day, a place he frequented when he lived in Los Angeles. But there was nobody there—Shobhit even asked the cashier there, who said the taco truck was still there every day, but on this day they didn't show up. What the hell! Well, pizza it is.

Sunday, November 19: Palm Springs

Okay, I confess! Faith technically lives in Desert Hot Springs—a town of 33,000 twelve miles north of Palm Springs. We arrived at her house at about 10:30. You can see Palm Springs proper from her backyard so as far as I'm concerned it still counts.

She immediately fed us a dessert that was as shockingly delicious as it was simple: a kind of cherry oat crumble, with only oats, flour, butter, and a can of cherries as ingredients. We had it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top and it was amazing. Shivy packed the last bit of it still left at the end of our visit to go.

Monday, November 20: Palm Springs (for real)

Here I am, exploring unfamiliar territory.

After Shobhit and I took Shivy to downtown Palm Springs to walk about a mile and back browsing shops on Palm Canyon Drive, then stopping by the local Total Wine & More to stock up on booze, we came back to the house and I made Screw Drivers using fresh squeezed orange juice from the orange tree in Faith's backyard—something Shivy was all about; we burned through a 1.75 liter bottle of Tower Vodka in five days.

Any time we had any extra time, we did what Shobhit and I hsve always done with Faith: play Yahtzee.

Tuesday, November 21: Joshua Tree National Park

I really love this shot, which Shobhit took of Shivy and me climbing across giant rocks at Joshua Tree. It's quite rare to get anything even remotely like an "action shot" of me, let alone one this great. Plus, I spend so much time taking photos, taking selfies, taking timed group photos with me in them, etc—I'm much more used to having the control of how I appear in a photo, when a shot is taken where I am unaware of being photographed, and it turns out to be a good shot, that's one of my favorite things.

This was Shobhit's and my third time to Joshua Tree—we went the last time we visited, for Thanksgiving in 2021—but Shivy's first. We've largely run out of local points of interest we haven't already seen, but were happy to take Shivy to them, as she had never been to Palm Springs before.

Tuesday, November 21: Trixie Motel

Gabriel saw on my socials that we were in Palm Springs, and he sent me this urgent text:

You HAVE to go here and take pics. We would pay you back for a fun piece of memorabilia.

The text was accompanied by the Yelp link for Trixie Motel, an uber-pink Palm Springs motel owned by drag queen Trixie Mattel, who incidentally cohosts a YouTube video series with fellow drag queen Katya Zamolodchikova, called UNHhhh, the means by which these two are the only celebrity drag queens I currently or have ever followed in any way (they are both alums of RuPaul's Drag Race, which I have never watched, except for that one time in a bar in New Orleans in 2014).

The hotel was kind of on the way back to town from Joshua Tree, which we entered from the north and then excited from the south, so that was when we decided to swing by. It was surprisingly nondescript—a product of city regulations, according to a Discovery Plus docuseries, according to Gabriel—and it took us some time even to figure out where the entrance was. We finally found it around the corner, this closed pink gate with a sign that read "GIFT SHOP ENTRANCE - Ring the Doorbell to Access." We did as instructed, an automated voice came on saying someone would be with us shortly, and we stood around for a good five minutes before a young lady came and let us in, saying the gift shop would not be open for another ten minutes. But, we could wait in the (also very pink) lounge.

A sign where we first tried to park, around the corner, said No photography please, but as we waited ten minutes or so, I took several. Finally the "gift shop" opened, and it turned out to be doubling as the motel office, which a pretty limited selection of insanely expensive merchandise (pink Trixie Motel baseball cap: $50; pink Trixie Motel tumbler: $50, or two for $100!). In addition to that one wall of merch, which also included a buck of dolls, we finally noticed a small rack of clothing in the corner, and, being unable to contact Gabriel while I was there and being totally unsure of what to get for him, I finally settled on a T-shirt. I also bought myself a tote bag, even though we already have tote bags overflowing in our trunk at home—but, I also wanted a souvenir and it was the most reasonably priced thing with some actual utility.

While I was being rung up, Shobhit suggested I get a photo of their pink lips phone, and then the young woman offered to take our picture out by the Trixie Motel sign. So maybe the "no photography" was just a broad guideline? Or maybe it was to discourage people from holding cameras above the fence from outside, I don't know.

Later that evening, Shobhit and I went for a walk, specifically for him to check out a spa he was thinking of going to—Desert Hot Springs being "California's Spa City," with around 20 natural mineral spring lodgings, down from a peak of over 80 in the mid-twentieth century. There's one only a mile from Faith's house that is clothing optional, so Shobhit wanted to go and check it out before deciding whether we would go the next day. We actually got inside through the first entrance we found, which evidently was a service entrance someone left unlocked; we got inside about 15 minutes before the place closed for day pass holders and at first we thought there was nobody there at all. It was very weird, and when I said, "Maybe it's closed," a guy we hadn't realized was sitting in the pool startled us by saying, "No, it's not closed."

Anyway I took the above shot on our walk back to Faith's, just a few blocks from the house, with Palm Springs proper in the valley in the distance under the moonlight. I really loved how it turned out.

Wednesday, November 22: Mi Kasa Hot Springs

As you can see, we did indeed return to the place we checked out, the next day. Their contactless checkin, I am assuming, is a holdover from covid; we could only call or text a number on their website rather than booking online, and then I had to Zelle the $40 each for our day pass to the number.

Mi Kasa Hot Springs, it turns out, is owned and operated by a gay couple. The one I spoke to on the phone was an Indonesian man named Ezzy (pronounced "Easy"), and his husband, who was there and let us in the door, was named Matthew. That wouldn't be that notable, of course, except that after Shobhit and I were the first to arrive that day, the next couple to come in, a stunningly beautiful, young, twenty-something opposite-sex couple, that guy's name was also Matthew. And then, later, an overnight couple arrived (the place has rooms you can book) who were young and stunningly beautiful, and that guy's name was Matthew. I had never in my life been surrounded by so many other Matthews.

Wednesday, November 22: WildLights at the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens

What a gift we all are!

Shobhit and I had seen the "WildLights" display at the Living Desert Zoo once before, sort of, back in 2012—we actually went to the zoo and garden in the late afternoon, not realizing there was also a holiday lights display, but then noticing the lights around as the sun went down. I was looking up things to do in Palm Springs with Shivy, and Living Desert in Palm Desert came up, and I suddenly thought this was a great idea. And: Shivy was very excited about it, was wildly engaged the entire time we were there, and clearly had more fun at WildLights than anything else we did.

Faith took the above picture, not ever wanting to be in any photos. It was nice that she came with us to this event at all; everything else Shobhit and Shivy and I went out to do, Faith stayed home.

The digital camera I have on my phone now is far better than the one I had eleven years ago, particularly for nighttime shots. A lot of the actual animal exhibits were closed in the evening but many of them were open, allowing for me to get what is easiy the best shot I have ever taken of giraffes.

It took some convincing but Shivy and I convinced Shobhit to pose with me for this wonderful photo, which Shivy took for me.

Thursday, November 23: Thanksgiving

Cheers! Left to right: me, Faith, Shobhit, Shivy, and Jorge (who had also joined us for Thanksgiving dinner in 2021).

I guess you could call our Thanksgiving dinner this year "Indian Fusion"—traditionally Shobhit cooks a bunch of Indian dishes, but this year he made only one: eggplant squash (thar's what's inside the pot on the table in front of me). He also made a huge salad and an asparagus side dish, and Faith made really delicious scalloped potatoes. She also baked two more pies (in addition to the cherry crumble), lemon meringue and apple, and I had one slice of each. I ate way too much, and of course I am the first person ever to do that in the history of Thanksgiving.

I had another two screw drivers on Thanksgiving Day—now switching from Faith's fresh oranges to the bottle of orange juice in the fridge because it was less work—in addition to this Lemon Drop, which was Shobhit's idea. At Shivy's request, I could only post this shot as friends-only on Facebook, as she did not want any other family besides her parents seeing that she is drinking. (Shivy, who graduated from college earlier this year, will be 23 on December 2.)

Now I'm wrapping up this email at LAX Airport, waiting to fly home, where naturally I will spend some of the weekend putting up my Christmas decorations. On to the next month of holiday events!

A Very Shivy Palm SpringsGiving 2023

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