California Again

We came home for the holidays, but ended up staying for 5 months, dealing with testing and family affairs. We spent a few weeks in Palm Desert, which was nice. It was hot, but dry. I got to do a lot of hiking, especially the Bump and Grind trail. That became my personal challenge, trying to improve my time hiking the difficult hike. I received a HR Fit Bit as a gift from the family, and this allowed me to track steps taken, miles walked, heart rate, stairs climbed, and calories burned. It was great. I started getting up by six to hit the trail before it got to hot and had two hours to complete the hike before heading off to work.

Some other fun stuff we did in Palm Desert was go to the BNP Paribas Open Tennis Tournament. i got to see Rodger Federer play a practice round. I never really liked tennis until I started playing it. Now, I enjoy watching the game, so it was fun to see someone famous playing. 

We also got to go to a windmill tour. Before going on this tour, I thought one windmill was pretty much like any other windmill. Now I know differently. There are a variety of kinds of windmills, but the average takes 6-9 million to build and about 10 years before it produces a profit. So, 1-3 or a whole set can be built by different companies or individuals, depending how much money they can put down. 

San Jacinto Aerial Tram

We all went up the Aerial Tramway to the top of Mount San Jacinto. The weather had been in the mid 90s down in Palm Desert, so we figured there would be hardly any snow on top. We were right, but Morgan still found enough to throw snowballs at me. I also saw a tree that smelled like maple syrup. Morgan made me stand there sniffing the tree forever before he took the picture. 

Finally, we went on a hot air balloon ride.