Really, It’s all about the back yard.
That’s what my dad says about his house in La Quinta, just outside Palm Springs proper. He’s retired and and lives during the winter down here. They were looking for a winter home for several years, and considered several Hot locations. Hawaii, Arizona didn’t work out. Either too costly, too far to fly, or something just didn’t click. Palm Springs has a lot of places that are nice. Great golf courses, great tennis, nice shopping, and easy to get to by plane, or even driving from LA. They came across this house, which was bank owned, in a good, blue collar neighborhood. It’s a pretty basic house, and needed some interior work, but, Holy Shit – the back yard.
Apparently the previous owner worked for a pool and spa company. It has a sweeping pressed concrete patio, fire pit and tiled BBQ station, and a custom pool and spa done in Desert rocks with twin waterfalls that cascade in. It’s amazing, seriously better than several hotels we have been at. Sasha has been in the hot tub almost constantly.
We had Thanksgiving dinner out on the patio, in the warm winter desert air. It was a simple, traditional turkey dinner. Honestly, I like that best. I find when you try to get too creative with a traditional dinner, you lose something and it is rarely worth the effort. The Turkey was good and moist, Perfect Yams, cranberries, and stuffing. We picked up the wine from the local store (Bordeaux, of course). Yulia’s friend Anya drove out from san Diego and brought a terrific pie from someplace that everyone knows and I had never heard of.
Right after dinner, we had a Hawks game to watch. Unfortunately, it was on NBC, and the Dish hare is shared with Seattle and didn’t have local channels. We spent the afternoon working out how to find the game, and finally figured out the deal. NBC has game streaming online, but you need a Cable Company login to make it work. I tried my xfinity account and it worked fine. We then got a VGA cable to hook my laptop to the TV, and set up some speakers on the laptop. Bingo. We’ve got game.
Great watching the Hawks spank San Fran. The pie was great, and we polished off the wine. it’s a cliché to eat, drink, and watch football, but hey, it works. That’s a good Thanksgiving.
Cognitive Dissonance 