Palm Springs

The Sweazys are returning to LA in a few weeks for a dear friend's wedding, so my fave city and longtime home has been majorly on the brain. Yet one of my favorite things about living in LA was the ability to escape from it when the endless summer got a little too endless. My favorite getaway was always Palm Springs. Very early on in my relationship with Caleb, when I was still picking up the gore and pieces of heart from my broken engagement, fighting my very scary fall into this new relationship and fielding overseas calls from an Italian paramour who was furious that I wasn't pining away for him, I knew I had only one option.

I escaped. Just seeing those mysterious windmills and the slopes of the desert made me feel at peace. I loathe humidity and the havoc it wreaks upon my skin and hair, so traveling into this hot, dry lunarscape was like slipping inside a cocoon. I checked into the deserted Miracle Manor, a favorite 60s motel with a great hot spring and took sad pictures of my toenails as I lounged on the deck and watched the sun set behind the hills. Sipping on a margarita, I called Caleb from a mexican restaurant who took my semi nervous breakdown in stride. After a restful night's sleep, I went for an early morning swim but quickly chose to pack up as the new guests that had arrived clearly relished the clothing-optional policy. I just couldn't couldn't enjoy the springs next to a naked 70 year old man.

It wasn't just me that chose to hide out in the desert. It was a favorite location of gangsters who opened hotels as a front for the boozy brothels raging behind their respectable doors. Before Carole Lombard was taken from her precious Clark Gable, the honeymooners lost a weekend holed up in the Library Room at The Willows.



The minimalist, mid-century Hope Springs was a favorite for a romantic rendezvous and the place where I discovered Zero 7 and Dwell Magazine.




Korakia was simply otherworldy, as if a someone had dropped a Moroccan palace from the sky. You felt sexier just being inside its walls. It was also the site of Caleb's second massage, the first one by a dude. I think he's recovered.





I know that if I still lived there these last minute escapes of my 20s would be just that - things belonging to her past. We will be in LA for such a short while that we won't have the chance to return to PS. I suppose that's why we have the internet, so we can look at pictures and daydream and try not to let nostalgia turn ugly in our stomachs.