Under the Baobab Tree

The Palm Springs Viceroy

It's been a while since I wrote a travelogue. The weather on the East Coast has been so gawdawful of late that I thought my current trip might be worthy of a short story.

Sunday in DC it snowed for hours and piled up three inches of thick wet snow. I had spent most of the weekend out on a farm in Howard County where the snow obscured everything including the roads (too rural to be plowed). The pine trees and evergreens were covered. My friend's pick-up truck fishtailed its way down Sundown Road. Our horses stood nose to tail for protection. There was no wind at all -- the snow fell straight down and piled straight up on the branches and limbs of everything. Power lines sagged. It took me 1.5 hours to make a 45 minute drive back into town. It was the second snow storm in as many weeks. The snow from the first one had not yet melted. The temperature had not risen meaningfully above freezing in two weeks. The Potomac was frozen over all the way. People were skating on the C&O Canal. The sky was dark and leaden all day. Later, freezing rain began.

Monday morning I flew at the crack of dawn to Palm Springs. I have an important witness here who requires somewhat frequent attention. I left so early in the morning that I arrived in California around 11 a.m.

I walked off the plane to realize that most of the Palm Springs airport is actually outside. The walk to baggage claim is outside -- there are signs that direct you to the parts of the airport that are actually inside. And so there I was in 75 degree weather under palm trees with bougainvillea and jacaranda and plumbago and the tube flowers and hundreds of golfing retirees renting their Cadillacs from Hertz and picking up their clubs from baggage claim. I put my sunglasses on. I took my wool coat, scarf, and suit jacket off. I looked up at the golden brown desert mountains that ring two sides of Palm Springs. I wondered once again why everyone doesn't move to California.

My witness was waiting for me at the Palm Springs Viceroy which is a boutique hotel decorated in a style that is called Hollywood Regency. Imagine how Elizabeth Taylor might have decorated her house in the 1960s. Black and white tiled floors, black and white everything in the rooms, large white stone Borzoi dogs on every balcony and among the shrubberies, three swimming pools -- two of which are for adults only -- a spa in the old Estrella Inn building which is tiny white adobe and red tiled, a fabulous restaurant decorated all in white with bright yellow side chairs. From the street you would never even know this place is here. It is somehow obscured behind rubber trees and jacaranda trees and discrete white washed stone walls. The lots on either side of it are abandoned and full of rubble. There is no sign.

The witness was waiting at a white square table in the very center of a white square room that was a free standing white stone red-tiled square building in the center of square patch of green grass with a bright yellow lawn chair and a white stone borzoi dog. Green, white, square. A man arrived with lobster tacos and a glass carafe of orange flavored white tea. The wind blew gently against the French doors that lead from the white square room to the square green lawn in the sun. We talked to the witness for a while and then quit for an early dinner.

My co-counsel and I sat by one of the adult pools under a grapefruit tree looking up at the palm trees outlined against the San Jacinto mountains. I was in beach pants and bare feet. Our table was surrounded by bougainvillea. A jacaranda tree was nearby -- evergreen succulent shrubberies grew behind us. We ordered two limeades. We ordered some oysters. We discussed how we tend to see each other in odd places -- a steak-house in Orlando in the middle of the summer, an Irish pub on 52nd and 7th in New York, a seafood joint in Chicago, Shutters hotel in Santa Monica, and now a Hollywood Regency spa in Palm Springs. Our waitress, Rose, asked how long we had known each other and we were shocked that the answer was almost four years -- we have both changed firms since we first met but we still work for the same client.

We ordered dinner -- soy-ginger glazed short ribs and brie mashed potatoes. We ordered a nice bottle of a boutique Oregon pinot noir. Then I had a grappa and she had a port. Then we had some champagne sorbet. A group of four boisterous locals sat down next to us outside under the grapefruit tree. They told us all about all the movie stars who like to stay at the Viceroy. Our topics of discussion included the disappearance of the manly man in America, strengths and weaknesses of pizza parlors in Chicago, reasons for and against life insurance, etc. Our waitress Rose began referring to us as "Rose's girls." We stayed out by the pool long into the night as the moon crossed over the mountains and out into the desert.

I slept in my Hollywood Regency black and white room with the white stone Borzoi dog out on the balcony with the door open and the breeze blowing in. I could still see the moon and smell the plumbago and bergamot. It was perfectly quiet except for a fountain burbled somewhere in the dark shrubbery.

Today we spent some more time in the white square building with our witness. He turns out to be such a terrible witness that we quickly scheduled four more days in Palm Springs with him as well as a week in Santa Monica in April.

In a late afternoon stroll around the art galleries of Palm Springs, watching the sun against the desert mountains, my co-counsel and I discussed how it really is a very very tough job that someone just has to do.

Tomorrow I fly to New York for a dinner party and then back to DC on Thursday to see whether all the snow has melted.