Another Olson vacation is in the books.
I first realized how life as a mother has taken it's toll on me, when we boarded our flight and I passed out immediately. When I woke up, I leaned over to Cody and whispered in a fairly annoyed voice, "What are we doing....? We have been waiting on the tarmac for like 30 minutes now." He just looked at me and smiled, then opened the window shade so I could see we were already in the air. Moments later, the pilot announced we would be landing in less than 20 minutes. Ha. I suppose I was a little tired. Sounds about right for a working Mama.
We landed in Palm Springs to spend 5 glorious nights and 6 sunny days on vacation with just the two of us. Hanley was back at home with Oma.
We spent the first day lounging at the pool, racking up a bar bill charging it directly to our room. Yup, that will get you in trouble real quick!
We spent the second day with our friends Jeff and Jeana who live in L.A. We met them for coffee, went up to Big Bear Lake and did some goofing around.
 |
| Big Bear Lake |
 |
| We spotted Marilyn! |
 |
Dinosaurs anyone?
There is a gift shop INSIDE this dinosaur...We passed on the entry to the mechanical dinosaur museum in the back.
Can you see Cody in the picture? |
We spent the third day back at the pool. Then played a
friendly competitive game of tennis. All you need to know is that I won and Cody owes me a back massage! Later that evening we planned a date night: Mexican food at my request and a movie. You know your husband loves you when he lets you drag him to the second Hunger Games movie, even after he hated the first! Despite Cody also hating the second movie as well, we really enjoyed our night out. This was the only night of our trip we stayed up past 10 pm.
 |
| Nothin' like starting out your day at the pool with a bloody mary and some California sunshine! |
 |
| Getting ready for our date night! |
We woke up before the sunrise on the fourth day for a hot air balloon ride. When Cody first mentioned the hot air balloon ride, he thought he was going to have to talk me into it but I said YES right away. It wasn't until I was standing in the balloon ready for take off when I started having second thoughts. We soared through the air at over 1,000 feet at the grace of the wind while we watched the sunrise (and all the dogs below bark at us!). It took us about an hour to travel about 17 miles across the desert. The guide had
us me a little worried about the landing, mentioning several times "it's not going to be smooth", "bend your knees", "don't be surprised when we bounce and all kinds of stuff". The landing was actually lots of fun!! We bounced 3 times but overall was much better than he had mentally prepared me for. I am so glad we did the hot air balloon ride! We actually used our Christmas money from my Grandparents to splurge on it, so I better make sure to call my Grandma and let her know how much fun we had!
 |
| I wasn't panicking just yet :o) |
 |
| Morning sunrise with our fellow ballooners in the air |
When we got back to the hotel, I immediately spiked a sudden fever. We spent the rest of the day cooped up in our hotel room and had to cancel our dinner reservations for New Years Eve. Later that night, Cody spiked a fever too. We were quite the pair let me tell you. Sick and missing our baby was not a good combo.
We laid low the fifth morning. After a bad case of cabin fever and getting some antibiotics in our system for our strep throat, we decided to make the drive to Salton Sea. It's a pretty interesting place. The beach looks sandy but it is actually nearly 100% barnacles. The "sea" is large but shallow, it's 55% saltier than the ocean (and increasing in salinity with each passing year), there is an abundance of tilapia (so much that there is not a fishing limit), and the once popular destination area is practically deserted nowadays.
 |
| That is all barnacles on the beach! Dogs aren't allowed on the beach because the barnacles will get stuck and infected in their paws. I was in flip flops and worried about my own feet! |
 |
| Beautiful day at the "sea"! |
On our way back to town, I insisted we visit a date farm (we saw a couple date farms from the air on our balloon ride that struck my interest). So, we stopped at Shields Date Garden right off the HWY 111. It was NOT what I expected! I wanted to learn about the growing process and harvesting of dates but instead we got a biblical tour. Seriously...
 |
Date Palms!
We made sure to enjoy a Date Milkshake while we were there! |
 |
| Jesus on the Cross |
We spent the rest of the day back at the hotel trying to recover from our day out. It was probably more than our bodies were ready for. We were back in bed by 7:30 pm when both our fevers came back. Neither of us got any sleep that night.
By the sixth morning, we were ready to be home, back in our own beds and more than ready to re-united with Hanley. Other than getting sick, we really enjoyed some quality time together. We had zero expectation for this vacation other than
trying to sleep in (which yeah right, our bodies are just wired to be up at 6 am regardless) and relaxing. We successfully got in lots of relaxing down at the adult pool during the day and soaking in the hot tub in the evenings.
We didn't do any research before leaving, so we stole Jeff's motto of "Google that shit" for all our little adventures (which included checking out Elvis' neighborhood and house-totally retro by the way), restaurant reviews, etc.
On flight home was hard. I was feeling HORRIBLE by this time and I couldn't stop thinking about getting home to Hanley. There was a 1 1/2 year old that started crying just before boarding our flight which in turn made me cry. I missed Hanley so much. Cody said (with a smile) the baby girl crying, did just the opposite for him.
We landed. Oma welcomed our return and we peeked in on our sleeping boy. My heart was full and my throat was sore. It was indeed another Olson adventure.
The next morning we got to wake up to this little guy...
Thank you Madaline from Peak Travel (
http://www.peaktravelgroup.com/) for booking this vacation for us! Despite getting sick, we had a great time!!! The resort was beautiful and the weather was more than perfect!!!
