Kango Suz Travels

Once the wintertime escape destination for Hollywood’s most famous movie stars, Palm Springs has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years. Both in population and in tourism, this desert community is one of the hippest and exciting places to be inland in Southern California. Always a destination of artistic types, in recent years Palm Springs has grown into a true art-based community. For a taste of local art scene, as well as some of the great masters of all time, I spent an evening exploring art in downtown.

I stayed at the Spa Resort & Casino, which is located in the heart of downtown. From the hotel, which is one of the oldest resorts in the area and an experience in and of itself, I walked due west for about ½ a mile to the beautiful Palm Springs Art Museum. Every Thursday night they have live music at their outdoor café and admission is free (although donations are strongly encouraged). While the museum itself is rather small compared with some of the great museums of the world that I’ve had the privilege of haunting, it’s collection is right up my alleyway. My favorite artists include Picasso, Degal, Rodin, Pollock and anyone who does cool glass. It’s not often that I can find awesome selections of each within a minor museum, but the permanent collection at Palm Springs has some wonderful examples. I had expected lots of baskets and other indigenous artwork, which is great but not my favorite, and was pleased to find Cahuilla Indian basket weaving alongside some wider-known names.

I love very large artwork. Just love it. Hence my corresponding love of architecture. I was pleased and thrilled to experience the Patrick Dougherty, Second Sight installation while I was there. Dougherty, a contemporary artist whose work is from found objects and does massive nests, etc, had created huge, beautiful tumble-weed type structures in the center of the main gallery’s three floors. Did I mention that these are HUGE? Awesome – in all senses of the word.

After I had absorbed as much as I could handle of the museum, I migrated back to the main drag of Palm Springs, where their Village Fest Craft Fair happens every Thursday night. Local artisans and great street food (my favorite kind of food) line about a mile of Palm Canyon Drive and it’s THE place to be. I love street fairs, mostly because of my street food addiction, but this one’s booths are truly good art, which is rare at these sorts of things. I was completely exhausted by the time I crawled back into my bed.

Like the child whose name gets written on the board, Alcatraz sits in the foggy bay of San Francisco, an ever present warning of what happens to you if you truly break the rules. Once home to Indian tribes and later inmates of the high-security prision, the rocky crags of the island now welcome tourists by the hordes.
A wonderfully narrated audio tour is the best way to experience the island, allowing you to move at your own pace from the cell blocks with their automatic doors to the kitchen with it’s knife silhouettes still painted on the walls, lets a tourist revolt. My favorite part of the tour was the brief history of famous inmates, including the Birdman, and the spooky stories that accompanied the historical background provided. To this day, however, I have a deep respect for the punishment that is solitary confinement. “The Hole,” which is now open for visitors to walk in and out of, could not tempt me to cross it’s threshold on the sunniest of days. I just couldn’t do it- claustrophobia previously unknown to me reared it’s head and had me scurrying from the vicinity as fast as I could.
Despite the huge number of tourists and the dozens of boats that come and go from the island daily, there is something wild about the place. Walking around the yard, waiting for the return ferry, you get the sense that were the daily influx of humans to cease, the ocean, birds and seals would quickly make themselves at home and retake what was once only theirs. Of all the desolate places I’ve visited in my life, this is the only one where the sense of desolation and isolation were still able to overcome thousands of people a day.

Sometimes I think that my travel bug is closely associated with my masochistic side. I have only truly ever thought that I was going to die when I was traveling. Not that that is a bad thing, if I don’t live to be 97 like my grandmother and die peacefully in bed one night, I hope I die while traveling.
Sitting at the top of some hill in San Francisco, behind the wheel of my brand new car, I truly thought that I would be dying in the next few minutes. My front wheels were a good 4 feet above my back wheels and I sat there, my hands and feet and heart griping every piece of the car that I thought would give me a better control over it, cursing my cocky self that thought it would be ‘fun’ to drive up to San Francisco for the night. It would have been, I suppose, if my new Mitsubuishi Lancer didn’t have a manual transmission. [read on]

I don’t quite remember when I got the travel bug, but I think it was the first time I flew in an aeroplane. My mom, dad, dog and I flew from Monterey, CA. We went to see my sister, Jodi, graduate from High School. For some reason this was a really big deal, requiring my first plane trip ever, and lots of time sitting on the Carmel High football field. Then all the adults went to dinner or something and I got to play with Jodi and Chip’s other sisters.

I remember it was very strange to be playing with these girls, about my age, who were sisters to my brother and sister but not sisters to me. Obviously, they were from Jodi and Chip’s father’s second marriage, but the concept was never the less strange.

Other than that, what I remember about the trip was taking out dog, Penny, to Carmel by the Sea where we walked around and admired all the cute little shops and restaurants that I was informed were ‘too expensive’ for me to go into. That’s probably true, in retrospect. I’ve been back to Carmel By The Sea several times since then and I now love the restaurants and shops which are actually reasonably priced. But when I was 7 I was very accident prone and would not have been able to keep my hands of some of the beautiful artwork and glass work that is so common in these shops.

Ever since then I’ve had an insatiable desire to travel. My husband got sick of me always asking “Can we go there?” and finally said “We can go anywhere so long as you figure out how to pay for it.” So I started writing about travel to pay the bills and feed my soul… Stay tuned for even more fun stories.