One
of the opportunities I've discovered from the many photos taken on our recent trip to California and Arizona is due to extenuating circumstances, many photos were taken in a rush, or from inside the rental car.
This means we have many photos that have reflections, blurs, blemishes, out of focus -- most of the photos are.
Playing with one of the photos, though, I realized that its a great opportunity to play around with iPhoto and get something out of these photos. Who cares if some aren't perfectly clear! Or are grainy, or dark! There's still plenty of things interesting that can be done with them.
That said, now onto the actual photos. One of the nicest surprises about Palm Springs, which could have been a horrible tourist trap (we didn't know) is that we were pleasantly surprised to see row upon row of wind turbines. I saw this as a good sign -- somewhere that those who determine energy policies realized that the near-constant desert winds were a resource as much as they could also be a nuissance. There really are a LOT of turbines here, I wouldn't even begin to estimate how many.
We were happy to also be in Palm Springs "off-season". Few visit there in June, as its hot, and so's the rest of North America at that time, so why go to a desert tourist town? Free parking, good healthy restaurants, great accommodations at reasonable rates are just a few.
And of course, there's many things to do in the surrounding region -- moreso if you don't live in or are not often in desert regions. The nearby Joshua Tree National Park, for example, where you can see a lot of interesting desert wildlife (lizards, many cacti.. including joshua trees of course). Just make sure you have water with you at such places, and that you drink it. They say most people who are found dehydrated -- dead or alive -- are often found with full or near-full canteens of water, victims of their own rationing.
