Settling into Sara and Liz’s beautiful home

Tucker the dog is an added bonus

Fresh grapefruit and fresh-squeezed orange juice for breakfast. There are many citrus trees throughout Palm Springs. My goal was to pick a grapefruit or orange. Surprisingly, there are very few “u-pick” places.

There are many beautiful flowers ... this one is ocotillo

But virtually everything has spines!

Even the yard art!

Visit to a local botanical garden

April and her daughter Seneca arrived, flying in from Seattle via L.A. where they spent a day visiting Hollywood. Here are Sara, April and I enjoying a perfect morning on the patio (Seneca, being a teenager, is still in bed.)

Visit to the Living Desert Museum in Palm Desert, just “down-valley” from Palm Springs. This was a very nice zoo and garden with many native plants and animals.

Seneca and I visited an indoor bird sanctuary.

For all my vet office friends -- this is the veterinary hospital at the zoo.

Seneca even talked me into going on a camel ride with her!

Visiting a high-end art show in La Quinta, complete with ducks on the lawn

Our last stop for the day was the Shields Date Farm (thank you JohnO!). We saw date trees, orange trees, and grapefruit trees ... and I finally got to pick a grapefruit!  (No, it wasn’t an official u-pick ... but they weren’t going to miss one grapefruit!)

A fun-filled day .. we came home to a nice dinner and spent the evening swimming in the pool and relaxing.

Grapefruit? What grapefruit?