Paul & Shelly in Central America

Palm Springs is an anachronism. Like a perfect time capsule of post war (world war two that is) modernism dropped into a palm oasis slapped in the middle of a desert. It's a little mid-century jewel box.

Palm Springs is an artificial Holywood creation. The studio system that so dominated Hollywood in the 1940s and 50s decreed that actors and crew could not reside more than two hours from the studios and filming locations, so that production would not be put in jeopardy if reshoots were required. Actors desperate to get out of the hellhole of LA chose to settle in the secluded township of Palm Springs. There were two key reasons for this choice - Firstly, the town sits on a natural aquifer ensuring an all year round supply of fresh water - very helpful in the desert if you expect to have a pleasant garden. Secondly, there was only one dirt road in and out of the town. To Protect their stars privacy, the studios ensured that unwanted riff-raff - aka LA gossip journalists - were barred entry to Palm Springs. Any smart Alec who managed to slip in to report on the goings-on within would quickly be booted out of town by the obliging local police and black-balled from any job in Hollywood again. Palm Springs quickly became a private haven for the Hollywood elite where their shenanigans could be conducted openly in private.

Spanish revival architecture was de-rigeur for the period of the late 30s and early 40s, but Palm Springs was effectively a blank canvas. With nine months of sunshine to enjoy, the Hollywood elite wanted houses that fitted the landscape - light and airey, with little distinction between interior and exterior, big yards and swimming pools. Top architects were hired, who transformed modern domestic architecture - Mid-century modern.

The new style soon spread to domestic architecture and prefab housing estates. Simple box design neighbourhoods were built, all floorplans being identical - including a built-in swimming pool - but all made distinctive by their rooflines, some flat, some sloped, some butterfly, and their entry facades. Mid-century modern for the masses.

As the 1940s gave way to the 1950s, hotels and motels sprung up and the city grew to become an exotic holiday destination for the middle class.

Mid-century modern style remains ubiquitous in Palm Springs through the 1960s and 70s, although long abandoned elsewhere, giving the place a distinctly retro feel. It remains a popular holiday destination, especially for golfers and those seeking the nostalgia of the Rat-Pack era.

We arrived in Palm Springs on the tail of a sandstorm. Winds tearing down the valley can dump metres of sand across the highway, blocking the route in and out. We had to suddenly brake and pull to the left to avoid plowing straight into a two foot high sand drift that had blocked the right lane. It was a bit of a surprise welcome!

We checked into the Life Hotel, a renovated 60s motel, formerly known as the Royal Sands. After freshening up we headed out to our first tiki bar of the holiday, the Bootlegger. They claim to make the best cocktails in palm Springs and they were damn right. Aloha!

We then cruised down to The Reef, which served food and was closer to our hotel. Unfortunately it was really quiet and the kitchen was closed so we just had a cocktail and beer. Most restaurants seem to stop service around 9pm so we found ourselves a bit high and dry. In desperation we had toasted sandwiches ubered to our room.

The next day we were up early and exploring. We had a quick breakfast and wandered the shops. In the afternoon we joined an architectural tour that took us through some of the most iconic homes from the mid- century period. This was a self driving tour where we followed behind the tour leader, author and historian, Michael Stern, and we dialed into a chat line on our phone for the commentary. Here we hit another problem we'd encountered several times on our trip - iPhones are ubiquitous in the US and many apps and services US providers expect you to use for everything from booking a restaurant to checking in to a hotel only work on iPhone. We warned Michael we did not have iPhones and weren't sure we could connect. He was sure it would be fine. It wasn't. We couldn't connect and after driving around for a bit we had to pull over and jump into one of the other tour members' cars.

The tour was excellent and we visited some excellent homes. It's amazing that some people are willing to open up their homes for the tours. The tour ended at the Frey House II overlooking the valley. Designed by Alfred Frey, this house was as radical as could be in the 1940s, with its open plan scheme built around a natural rock feature that intrudes into the bedroom. It's an architectural icon although probably not a very practical building.

After the tour we took the tramway (a cable car) to the top of the mountain for the view. While it was hot in the valley, it was 6 degrees at the top of the mountain! From the top we could see another sandstorm blowing down the valley.

That evening we visited the Purple Room, a hangout of the Rat Pack back in the day. They have lounge singers and impersonators playing these days. It was very retro. Then we visited the Airport Bar, which proved very hard to find as it is a nondescript commercial centre with almost no signage. We eventually found it but it took a lot of effort. The bar is done up like an airliner - but with much more leg room! They were almost closing so we had a quick drink and then flew home.

"You know what the funniest thing about Europe is? It's the little differences. I mean, they got a the same shit over there that we got over here, but there it's just a little bit different” Vincent Vega's musing about the little differences between the US and everywhere else is as applicable today as it ever was. In this case, we were experiencing America's little differences. Different words for things, different turns of phrase, combined with our accents resulted in much mutual confusion. "I'm sorry, we're not from here. We don't understand what you're asking."

We were staying in Downtown LA, once a no-go area of urban decay but now undergoing a revival. Old buildings have been restored with niche hotels, bars and restaurants. There are still no-go areas. Only two blocks from our hotel the streets are filled with homeless encampments.

We started our holiday with a food and history tour. We've always found food tours to be particularly helpful to orient ourselves to a place. Sometimes we've been the only people on a tour, which can be a bit disappointing as it's good to interact with other people. There's a. Lot more pressure when it's just you and the guide. We'll, it proved to be one of those occasions. JM, a French - Brazilian advised us it was just us. Great. So off we went. Downtown LA has a lot of art-deco architecture so that aspect of the tour was excellent. We visited the Biltmore Hotel and the Bradbury Building, which featured in the movie Bladerunner, along with many other interesting buildings, but the food part of the tour was disappointing. L A is a melting pot so the tour seemed more of a random selection of world cuisines - Thai kebabs, Mexican tacos, Italian pasta, a French croissant and a donut. Nothing particularly inspiring. I guess that's to be expected.

After the tour we visited the Petersen Automotive Museum on the Golden Mile, the miles square zone of museums and art galleries in the east downtown. The Petersen Museum has an excellent collection houses in a magnificent new building. There are some real automotive gems and rarities in the collection. Highly recommended.

Petersen Museum virtually backs onto the LA Brea Tar Pits, something I've wanted to see since I was a dinosaur mad child. This natural oil seep has been trapping and preserving ancient beasts for tens of thousands of years. Oil bubbles up to the surface from deep within the earth mixing with water and soil to form a sticky tar-like mass. Animals would come to the pools to drink, get caught in the tar and sucked to their death. Dead and rotting carcasses would then attract predators hoping for an easy meal, who then became victims themselves. The tatr preserved the bones extremely well and excavations of the various pits resulted in hundreds of skeletons dating back hundreds of thousands of years. The pits are still very active today. As we were looking at one of the larger pools bubbles of natural gas popped to the surface. No one light a match!

After two nights in the Big City it was time to hit the road. We were heading west. We picked up our hire car from Enterprise Downtown, a short taxi ride from our hotel. Here we hit out first obstacle - no GPS. We had specifically ordered a GPS with the car as we were using Australian phones and roaming charges are expensive, but these days mobile phones are so ubiquitous that many people and companies do not consider the implications of NOT having a mobile phone is. "Just use your phone." Was the response from the staff. "But we can't." We replied. "Then you can go to the airport and hire one from the airport office", was the only suggestion. We weren't going to go an hour back to the airport so we were stuck. We signed up for an additional roaming plan and attempted to get out of LA.

The roaming plan tool some to to go through so we set off blind into the horror show that is the LA freeway system - at 11am. The guys at Enterprise gave some general directions - go two blocks and turn left then stay left and follow the signs for H10 south then get on H10 east. So we turned left and immediately missed the H10 turn off. Shit! Where the F were we? We had no idea. We tried to navigate back to Enterprise by dead reckoning but by a stroke of good fortune spotted a sign for H10 south and we just went for it. The next two hours were white knuckle tense driving through LA peak hour traffic. We've done a lot of foreign driving - including some terrifying drives in Italy - but nothing comes close. Fortunately all went well. We didn't crash. We didn't die. And an hour later our phone maps started working.

First a detour though to Joshua Tree National Park. Joshua Tree National Park undoubtedly received a boost from U2's Joshua Tree album, whose cover art was photographed in the park. The stark and angular trees - actually a type of yucca lily - make for a haunting landscape. The park also has interesting rock formations. It's reminiscent of the West Australian outback in many ways. The park is about an hour north of Palm Springs and worth a visit if you're travelling by.

After a drive through the park circuit we headed south towards Palm Springs.

Once there was the blog and exaggerated travelers tales and it was good. Then there was Facebook .... and we became very lazy. A stream of photos and smart-arsed caption. After a break of eight years of undocumented travels, it's time to return the blog. We shall see.... the best laid plans.

This year we travel to the US for a Tiki-festival and then head south of the border to the well worn tourist trail through Central America and many new lands for us.

Let's see what we find!

P & S