If you didn’t start with part one of this you are seriously missing out. So click over there and read it, then come right back!!
On day two of our vacation I was needing a cup of coffee to get going. Luckily the Starbucks was only a quarter of a mile from our hotel, and even though it was pretty close (I could see it close), I decided to drive over. I didn’t feel like getting out of the car with my windswept, slept in hair so I headed straight to the drive thru. Funny fact, the drive-thru Starbucks in Palm Springs is just as slow as a drive-through Starbucks in Washington. Now I somehow managed to go over my data flying here (thanks a lot Verizon) so I had a lot of free time to kill while I waited to order my coffee. There’s not much for a girl to do while she waits except push all the buttons in the fancy car she’s never driven before. I quickly discovered that the sweet Mazda3 not only has the feature to have the doors unlock when you push the little button on the handle, but also lock when you walk away from it with the keys in your purse. This may or may not be black magic, but I like it. Anyway, back to my story.
Once I had coffee in hand and I was safely back in my hotel room the hubby and I decided to stake or claim on the pool. No joke we posted up for about 3 hours before we remembered that coffee alone cannot sustain you, and lunch was going to be very necessary. We headed over to this little Mexican place right next to the Starbucks, Zapopan Mexican Food. Again, we could have walked, but like I may have mentioned before this is the desert folks, and it’s hot. The service was great, the food out of bounds and they had a salsa bar. Have I ever told you how much I love a good salsa bar. Well it’s a lot. I of course had to try one of of each of the tacos…and not one of them disappointed. Not even a little bit.
Bellies full, we headed back to the hotel and proceeded to sleep the afternoon away. I mean this is full on vacation mode! When we woke up it was time to get ready to head out to Village Fest. I had read a little about it online and it seemed like a great way to soak up some local flavor, grab some good eats and maybe pick up a little something for the kids. It was all those things and more! We strolled up and down the downtown streets with a few thousand other folks and tried to take it all in.
The first section we walked into was the food vendor section, which was perfect, because I was hungry after all that napping! We stopped off at Julian’s Pita Pocket for a little shawarma. I had never had shawarma before, but OMG I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. It’s made of warm fire roasted meat, carved off a spit, and wrapped in a warm pita with hummus, onion, lettuce, tahini sauce and a sprinkle of sriracha.
We wandered from vendor to vendor, trying to take it all in. We picked up some personalized bracelets for our kids, and had a long discussion with the man making them about the value in a good old fashioned, traditionally spelled name. There was also live music everywhere we went, which was a big draw for my musically inclined hubby. My husband being the over 6 foot sweet man that he is offered to take a photo from up high to try and capture the magic for all of you. Isn’t he sweet!?
We settled in to another Mexican restaurant downtown for a late dinner, drinks and even more live music. Sadly I was unimpressed, mostly because the food was lackluster, the drinks a little overpriced and the service just okay. So, if you’re in the downtown Palm Springs area on a Thursday night for village fest, stick with the food vendors in the street!
Now I have to tell you that late the night before my ear had started to ache a little. I shrugged off thinking it was just the ridiculous amount of traveling I had been doing. I mean Salt Lake City for 5 days (super high altitude) followed by a flight to Palm Springs the next day sounds like a recipe for disaster. But by the end of the night I was in a serious amount of pain so we skedaddled to the closest Walgreens for some ear drops and pain medicine. It was a sad finish to an exciting day.
I don’t think I have quite enough for a full post for the rest of our trip so I am just going to sum it all up for you here. I woke up feeling a little better so we ventured back to downtown to grab lunch and walk around. The place we stopped in, Azul Alibi, had amazing food, great service and a seriously great atmosphere. I got a Cobb salad, my husband got their club and we split it up between us. There wasn’t a bad bite on either of our plates and the view from the patio seating was breath taking!
We headed to the hotel for more pool time and wrapped up the night with a really amazing dinner from another local restaurant, Casa Blanca. I got a super fresh tostada and my husband got the largest fajita platter I’ve ever seen. Not to mention margaritas the size of my head! Then we headed back to the hotel for a rousing game of rummy because I wasn’t feeling up for much else.
Saturday we headed home and after what seemed like a bagillion hours we made it back to the kids and then back home!
