パームスプリングスから車でサンディエゴに移動します。
ハイウェイだと２時間ぐらいで着きますが、アメリカの道路に不慣れなので、山道を通るルートで行くことにしました。
街灯もない。ガードレールもない。夜の運転は恐ろしいですね…
南カリフォルニアのコロラド砂漠にあるCoachella Valley
カリフォルニアの乾燥した景色を堪能できます。
彼の名前はSMOKEY
山火事のお知らせをしてくれます。
山火事の跡も残っていました
今年のアメリカの冬は、カリフォルニアの砂漠に大雨が降るほど異常気象だったそうです。
山の方はまだ雪が残っていました。
こんなに山が緑なのを初めて見ました。
パームスプリングスは広い一軒家が多い地域になります。
広いリビング
寒い日は暖炉で暖まります。
広いキッチン。鬼ごっこができそうです。
nap time
細長ーーーいプール
温水にする機能がついているので、外が少々寒くても入れます。
携帯電話から温める操作ができるそうです。ハイテクですね。
とうっ！！！
splash!!!
夜は外の暖炉を囲んで、おしゃべりに花を咲かせます。
５日間のパームスプリングを家族と堪能することができました。
次はサンディエゴへ車で移動です。
Americans love air museums and all over Southern California you can find museums featuring collections of military and civilian aircraft. The Palm Springs Air Museum is one of the better ones that I have been to over the years. Most of the airplanes on display are from WWII. The SBD ("Scout Bomber Douglas"), pictured above, was the US Navy’s main carrier-based scout/dive bomber from mid-1940 through mid-1944. It played an instrumental role in the Battle of Midway in June of 1942.
Side view of the Dauntless.
The Vought F4U Corsair (above) was an American fighter-bomber which saw service in WWII and the Korean War. I love the design, particularly the shape of the wings. It was flown by the Navy and Marine Corps.
The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk is a retired American single-seat, twin-engine stealth attack aircraft developed by Lockheed and operated by the United States Air Force. It was the first operational aircraft to be designed with stealth technology.
The F-117 was widely publicized for its role in the Gulf War of 1991. The U.S. Air Force retired the F-117 in April 2008, primarily due to the fielding of the F-22 Raptor.
For an extra twenty dollars you could fly a simulator. Yu-kun managed to shoot down two of three enemy fighter jets, but unfortunately crash-landed his jet.
Rikkun is ready for take off.
Our neighbor’s home
Two main styles of architecture predominate in Palm Springs—Mid-century modern, as I have mentioned in a previous post, and the “hacienda” style. I am a big fan of both.
Homes designed in the Mid-Century fashion in Palm Springs are usually single-story, with geometric rooflines. Most of these houses were built in the 1950s and 60s.
According to Wikipedia, the movement behind mid-century modern architecture (1950s/60s era) in Palm Springs is backed by architecture enthusiasts, designers, and local historians to preserve many of Palm Springs' buildings and homes of famous celebrities, businessmen, and politicians. Stores sell furniture and gifts that feature a mid-century modern theme. The city holds a Modernism Week celebration every February, along with several related smaller events during the year.”
The other style is called hacienda.
Again, Wikipedia, “The term hacienda is imprecise, but usually refers to landed estates of significant size, while smaller holdings were termed estancias or ranchos . . . In Mexico, as of 1910, there were 8,245 haciendas in the country. In Argentina, the term estancia is used for large estates that in Mexico would be termed haciendas.
“In recent decades, [however] the term has been used in the United States for an architectural styleassociated with the traditional estate manor houses.”
The hacienda style that you can find in Palm Springs typically have reddish brown tiled roofs, white or beige stucco wallswith plants growing up them, colorful shuttered windows, and covered patios.
Our first destination on this trip was Palm Springs.
Palm Springs is a small city of about 40,000 people, located about 2 hours east of Los Angeles.
When I was a child, my father bought the home pictured below with some of his coworkers who were all in the real estate business (不動産業界). During the spring and autumn months we would spend about one weekend a month at the Palm Spring house, swimming in our pool, playing in the local park, taking walks in the evening, and eating at our favorite Mexican restaurant. It was truly a happy time for all of us.
About ten years later, my father sold that house and bought another slightly bigger one in the nicer Las Palmas neighborhood of Palm Springs. Here, our neighbors included the famous statesmen Henry Kissinger and actor Rock Hudson. All of the houses, or at least most of them, were designed by the same architectural company, so they have a similar style that is very Mid-Century Modern.
This was the house across the street from ours ↓
Although it may look dry—and to be honest, it is—this view is one I love. Palm trees, Mid-Century Modern architecture, the mountains and blue skies.
When we had the house, most of our neighbors had laws in front of their homes. The drought (干魃) of the past two decades has caused everyone to turn their gardens into desert ones.
Here is a more iconic image of Palm Springs. Golf course, palm trees, blue skies and mountains. As you can see from the photo, there is snow on those mountains. The highest mountain is San Jacinto. It is about 300 meters lower than Mount Fuji and can get a lot of snow. The water in the local springs come from that snow.
There is a tram that goes from Palm Springs all the way up into the mountains. I must confess that I have never been on it.
We meant to go up into the mountains this time, but it was too cold and rainy.
One of the things I love to do when traveling abroad is to visit local supermarkets. It can be so revealing (啓発), providing you with valuable insight (見識) into the daily lives of the people who live there.
When it comes to supermarkets in America, the first thing that hits you is the size. They are HUGE (広大), the aisles wide enough to drive a Japanese compact car (軽自動車) down them.
The second thing that will impress, or shock, you is the amount of processed, instant and frozen food there is.
The frozen food section at our supermarket in Fukuoka looks like this:
The frozen food section at the Ralph’s in downtown Los Angeles looked like this:
What’s more, there were about six of these gigantic freezers. The frozen food section alone was bigger than our local Bon Repas supermarket.
It was the same with just about every section of the supermarket.
The cereal section at our local Bon Repas.
There were two walls of cereal at the Ralph’s in LA.
Chips at our local supermarket.
Chips at a supermarket in Palm Springs. There were so many different types, we couldn’t decide what to buy.
Our first order of business on this trip was visiting my mother, “Nena” to her many grandchildren, whom we had not seen since 2018. In the almost five years since we had last met her health had deteriorated considerably. So much so that I didn’t think she would last much longer. To everyone’s surprise, however, she did and has. Though physically weak, she is still mentally sharp as a nail, as they say.