The “People We Meet On Vacation” Vacation
My first thought when I emerge from the cool interior of the electric rental car is “Holy Sunday Morning is it hot.” In actuality, its early afternoon on a Saturday. My friend Shelby and I have escaped the Los Angeles hustle and bustle for some much needed R&R in the popular desert hideaway of Palm Springs. While we prepped for warm weather, the LA transplants in both of us figured a pilgrimage in late April would save us from the area’s legendary triple digit temperatures. I place a sneakered foot on the baking asphalt that surrounds the Visitors Center and moan, reaching for my water bottle as I pull on the neck line of the hot pink tweed romper I’ve chosen to wear. We should have expected this, especially considering the reason we’re here is to pay homage to People We Meet On Vacation, a romantic comedy set in this weekend oasis in which the immense heat is both a plot device and a featured extra. At least our car has air conditioning.
The Living Zoo & Gardens - 47900 Portola Ave, Palm Desert, CA 92260
By the time the car is fully charged and the heat index has climbed a few degrees, we still have a few hours until our hotel check-in. There are five places from Emily Henry’s second adult novel that exist outside of her imagination and pages, so we set off toward the one farthest from the city center: The Living Zoo and Gardens. About thirty minutes from downtown, the menagerie is located on the outskirts of Palm Springs. Unlike Alex and Poppy, the novel’s protagonists, Shelby and I do not venture inside to feed the giraffes. Opting to forgo the thirty dollar admission fee, we decide instead to inspect the plant life and sculptures marking the entrance, while weaving in and out of the range of the mist machines and marveling and the sheer number of toddlers and children braving the heat. A few are understandably over it. I’m on the verge of a tantrum myself when we collapse back into our vehicle. With the air conditioning on full blast, and still more time to kill, we head to our second stop.
Palm Springs Art Museum - 101 Museum Drive Palm Springs, CA 92262
Alex and Poppy have just arrived on location by the time we pull into The Palm Springs Art Museum’s vast parking garage and pause the audiobook. Admittance is sixteen dollars at the door. A worthy price for any time spent within the reach of it’s industrial grade cooling system, even before seeing the art that comes along with it. For Henry’s heroine, the showcase may not have held much intrigue, but Shelby and I spend over an hour bouncing from exhibit to exhibit, spending most of our time among the main floor’s sculpture and mixed media displays. While the pieces are rotated often and some are on loan longer than others, the current feature in the main museum is not one to miss if you are from the area or planning a trip prior to May 7, 2023. Phillip K. Smith III specializes in the use of glass, light, color and shadow to create art that is all at once, breathtaking, mesmerizing and interactive.
Standing in one of the building’s two sculpture gardens it’s obvious the sun has begun to sink in the sky. We finish our final lap and traipse back to the rental car. En route to our hotel, we make note of the many boutique shops and restaurants along Palm Canyon drive-and it’s many branches-that catch our fancy, promising to peruse them once we’re free of our luggage and have had time to charge our phones.
A Place In The Sun Hotel - 754 E San Lorenzo Rd, Palm Springs, CA 92264
Fortunately, we faired better than Poppy in the lodgings department. Thankfully, her chosen hotel, The Desert Rose Complex, is not a real location, but like Alex we weren’t looking to break the bank, so we gambled on a small boutique named A Place In The Sun. I cannot recommend it more. I fell so in love with the mid century modern establishment in our less than 24 hours there, that I’m not sure I will ever be able to stay anywhere else. The collection of 1951 bungalows once owned by Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift centers around a small pool adorned with it’s very own pink flamingo float. The old movie compound was calm, quiet and the exact definition of a home away from home. Shelby and I immediately settled around the communal watering hole while our energy banks refilled, only leaving to satiate the tug of our grumbling stomachs.
Palm Canyon Drive
Back on Palm Canyon Drive and now on foot, we work our way through a bookstore (They did not have People We Meet On Vacation in stock), home décor collection and vintage thrift before ending up in the clutches of an ice cream parlor. I try to pick out which shops on the strip may have caught Poppy’s fancy as I race to lick the quickly melting ice cream off my already sticky hand.
As the sun finally sets, we rush dinner and a cocktail, both of us eager to break into the bottle of wine we purchased for a poolside nightcap. Shelby and I are not the only ones with this idea. Most of the hotel patrons are enjoying the eighty degree evening. All of us blissfully and tipsily ignoring the sign denoting the 10 PM closing time tacked to the gazebo wall.
The Del Marco Hotel - 754 E San Lorenzo Rd, Palm Springs, CA 92264
The next morning, I wake to light rays seeping through the curtains. The famous Los Angeles “Sunny and seventy five” is Palm Springs at seven AM. Shelby and I don bathing suits before we’ve even had breakfast. We spend the morning dipping in and out of the water. When Shelby’s alarm chimes a cheery 10:30, it’s already uncomfortably warm, so we head inside to ready for check out. Belongings collected and faces we know we will likely sweat off on, we throw our bags into the backseat, strapping them in for the day’s itinerary: A self-guided architecture tour I found on the internet followed by the journey home. Because I am a sucker for detail, the first stop on our driving excursion is the same as the Rom Com couples. The Del Marco is known for it modernist architecture and historic location in the Tennis Club neighborhood. Built in 1947, you can still book a room at the hotel if it’s within your price range.
We spend the next hour sipping locally made iced coffees and gasping over perfectly stylized homes both on and off the list, filling the car with oohs, aahs, and covetous exclamations. We’ve made it further into the suburbs than intended when we decide to head West.
The Cabazon Dinosaurs - 50770 Seminole Dr, Cabazon, CA 92230
The final destination featured in People We Meet On Vacation is not technically in Palm Springs. Desperate for her and Alex to create some good memories on their seeming disaster of a holiday, Poppy forces the two of them into their boiling Craigslist rental and ventures almost an hour down the highway to the small town of Cabazon, home to one of America’s great roadside attractions, The Cabazon Dinosaurs. Like in the book, there is not much to do here. You come. You see. You take pictures and cool off in the gift shop. Its the perfect tourist trap.
As the giant T-Rex fades in the rearview mirror, so does the temperature. My forty-eight hours in the desert sun have left me perfectly exhausted. It’s the beautiful kind of tired that comes not from overwork or emotional stress, but from an extended period of relaxation. My time in Palm Springs was very different than the one Emily wrote for her characters, but I was glad to borrow their setting and make it part off my own story. If it is within reach, I found our getaway to be perfect in every way but duration. I would have happily stayed a few more days, triple digit temperatures and all.
You can purchase People We Meet On Vacation here,
