For a lot of people, Thanksgiving is a time for family. After getting an invite to meet up with my cousins in LA and counting my free miles, I decided to skip Vancouver’s rain in favor of the desert sun.

Ging picked me up from the Van Nuys fly away and we went straight to Jollibee to sample the chicken joy meal I missed, then to her mom’s place for beef sinigang. The vacation was proving to be a gastronomic treat.

The next day, we braved two and a half hours on the freeway to Palm Springs. It almost felt like we were chasing the sun. Palm canyon is a nice getaway equipped with all the distractions to keep any vacation fun. I enjoyed hanging out at the pool and playing hoops at the gym.

Our turkey less thanksgiving dinner was a hit. I missed reconnecting with family, and being surrounded with a rowdy bunch chased my blues away. The morning after, we hiked the calories off and explored the quaint downtown scene. We got lost looking for Cabazon and found ourselves on the Morongo wind mills. It didn’t really look like people were hardly hit by recession when we visited the outlet malls to witness the Black Friday madness, the store lineups were crazy long.

Aerial tramway – that was the highlight of the trip. Imagine being on a rotating gondola that was going up to 8000 feet of elevation, 5 towers, and 4 different kinds of climate in 15 minutes – sensory overload for sure. The scene change from desert to snow capped peaks was truly breath taking. At the top, you can do cross country skiing and snow shoeing, there’s also a restaurant, and a theater. For 20 bucks, I could do this every week, if only Grouse was that cheap.

Too short – that’s what I thought, but then again that’s what makes vacations more valuable, something to look forward to. I guess if everyday was like this, we would appreciate it less, that’s the tragedy of being human, sooner or later we get bored of utopia and want something new.

For now I am intoxicated by the blur of the past 5 days – I hope the buzz stays..