This laid-back Californian desert city is a lot greater than a music pageant location

Palm Springs has its personal sort of calm. Not silence, precisely, however house. The warmth is dry fairly than oppressive, and even in spring, the air feels clear. It doesn’t take lengthy to see that the desert works to its personal rhythm.

The mythology of Palm Springs is effectively established. Hollywood turned it right into a winter refuge, mid-century architects gave it its look, and Slim Aarons fastened it within the creativeness: white homes, lengthy swimming pools and daylight falling throughout nonetheless water. His well-known {photograph} ‘Poolside Gossip’, taken at Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann Home in 1970, nonetheless captures the temper completely — individuals who seem to have nowhere pressing to be.

What stayed with me was one thing less complicated. The desert clears the air and widens the horizon; the sky feels bigger right here, and the small, persistent worries all of us carry start to loosen their maintain.

I arrived late, after the lengthy drive from Los Angeles, a lot of it alongside an unlit freeway slicing via open desert. The final stretch felt virtually fully with out reference — simply highway and darkness — till, lastly, the resort got here into view. Outdoors, the terrace was lit, the night time nonetheless and funky. Somebody handed me a chilly glass of wine and, standing there looking over the darkish sweep of the Coachella Valley, the journey settled into place.

The resort sits excessive above the valley, overlooking Palm Springs and the San Jacinto vary. By day the view stretches throughout pale desert and distant ridges; by night time the angle shifts fully. The pool terrace seems immediately out throughout that panorama and it’s the type of view that makes dialog cease for a second.

Days fall into a simple rhythm. Lunch by the pool may be shrimp tacos and a frozen margarita, watching the mountains on the horizon.

Don Riddle