Summer in Palm Springs: “But it’s a dry heat.”

My niece Camille turned thirty-five in June. To celebrate, a platoon of relatives hit the road and headed for the Southern California desert — Palm Springs, if you grew up on Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra. Coachella Valley, if you’re younger and your cultural touchstone is the music festival. Which, I’m guessing, applies to very few of my readers.

The day we arrived the temperature topped out at a fiery 112 degrees. So when it’s that hot, and the sun crisps your skin like a chicken leg left on a hibachi, what’s the first thing you think of when you’re hungry? A New York deli, of course.

Sherman’s Delicatessen

We drove separately, caravanning in three separate cars. (Apologies for the carbon footprint, Earth.) Before hitting our hotel in Rancho Mirage, we agreed to meet in downtown Palm Springs for a nosh. At a legendary eatery called Sherman’s. It’s a deli. A real, honest-to-goodness, NYC-style delicatessen. Pastrami sandwiches as thick as the bible. Pastries the size of a hubcap. I marveled at a giant éclair in the display case that looked like someone had dipped a loaf of bread in chocolate. It looked both decadent and unnecessarily ambitious.

Surrounded by cacti instead of cabbies, Sherman’s seems out of its element — and out of its era. But it’s legit. One waitress, sporting a groovy ‘60s style beehive hairdo, looked like she just walked off the set of a John Waters film. I didn’t catch her name tag, but if it said “Laverne” I would not have been surprised. Another waitress, the one who brought our food, also brought the New York sass, but in a good way.

We ate. We drank. Water, that is. And once our electrolytes seemed in balance, we made our way to our desert oasis for the next few days: Omni’s Rancho Las Palmas.

Fiesta en el Rancho

I’ve been coming to Rancho Las Palmas for decades. It’s changed owners several times over the years, with each new regime bringing changes both welcome and unnecessary. I was a late addition to the birthday guest list and my room’s location reflected that tardiness. My sisters, and my niece and her family, both had rooms overlooking the golf course and a grove of date palms. My room was on the far edge of the property, overlooking a wide, dirt wash. Barren. Dusty. I didn’t know dirt came in so many shades of brown. I kept my curtains closed most of the time.

Rancho Las Palmas caters mostly to families now, with a water slide, a lazy river, an oversized chess board with pieces the size of a large toddler, and other family-friendly amenities. My niece’s kids, Wyatt and Celine, loved it. There is an adults-only pool on the property. It’s smaller and lacks the energy and activity level of the other pool. But then, that’s the point. Unwind, indeed.

What to Do? Everything.

RLP (that’s what the cool kids call it) is more than a hotel, it’s a full-blown desert playground, a sprawling resort with all the amenities you’d expect: restaurants, golf, tennis, pools, cabanas, a fitness center, and a spa offering “an array of desert-inspired treatments,” whatever those are. My guess is they involve heat and sand in some form or another. Cue the cucumber eye patches. The point I’m trying to make is this: when Rancho Las Palmas’ website claims there’s “something fun for everyone in the whole family” they’re not exaggerating.

One on-site restaurant is called Desert Pearl. We ate breakfast there twice. The place was packed with families because, don’t quote me on this, but I think kids eat free. The food was passable, but nothing to rave about. I don’t even remember what I ate for breakfast the first time, that’s how memorable it was.

However, the morning we were leaving, I sat solo in their bar area and ordered avocado toast. It was one of the best versions of avo toast I’ve ever had: thin slices of perfectly ripe avocado, fanned out elegantly, with heirloom tomato, EVOO, sea salt, marigold leaves (!) and a poached egg perched atop a thick slice of nine-grain bread. Slit that egg open and liquid deliciousness spills out like golden lava. It was delectable. Dare I say, scrumptious. If you go, it’s a must-eat.

What’s Up in the Desert? The Surf, Dude.

If you want to hang ten instead of just hang out, check out the Palm Springs Surf Club. I know, even writing that made me think, “Huh?” But it’s the real deal. Right there, smack dab in the middle of the desert, near the Palm Springs airport, is a surf park. Complete with a water slide, a pool and, true to its name, a wave pool, generating set after set of perfectly formed waves.

My niece’s husband, Deric, was born and raised in Huntington Beach, California. It’s nicknamed Surf City for a reason. Deric has surfed his whole life. Even took time off in his 20s to live on Maui. So the guy definitely knows his cutback from his layback. Unbeknownst to me, he made reservations at said surf park. He’s never been and he wanted to try it. Even though I don’t surf, I’ve read about the place for years, always wanted to see it, but never had the opportunity. This was my chance.

You can rent boards, but Deric brought this own. It was so hot that day he had to keep applying wax to his board because it kept melting. Once he got the right amount of grip he was off and running. The viewing area is a bit far from the action, but I was able to watch Deric catch a few waves. Cowabunga.

His surf sesh lasted an hour. I lasted about twenty minutes. The heat was withering and there wasn’t much shade. There’s a covered bar I could’ve ducked into and had a beer. But honestly, I just wanted water and air conditioning, so I hightailed it back to the hotel. (Again, separate cars. Again, sorry, Earth.)

Fiesta en el Restaurante

To celebrate my niece’s cumpleanos, we made reservations at a Mexican restaurant called Las Casuela’s Nuevas. It was in Rancho Mirage, near our hotel. (There are two more Las Casuelas in Palm Springs proper, Original and Terraza.) The restaurant is old-school all the way, from the décor right down to the food. An elegant fountain in a tiled courtyard greets you as you walk in. Once inside you notice the walls are made of dark, weathered brick, lending a nice authentic touch. Rustic brown is the dominant color throughout the restaurant interior with pops of red and yellow and blue and green and turquoise to keep visual interest.

First up, drinks. I ordered a Cadillac margarita on the rocks. It was delicious and strong. After the first one I just had to have a second — you know, to check for, ah, consistency of flavor. Yeah, that’s it. My go-to dish in a new Mex restaurant is a combo plate, usually chicken taco, beef enchilada, rice and beans, to see if they “do it right” across the board. I was not disappointed. This place even had ground beef as an option for their enchiladas. My favorite, so I was muy feliz.

Everyone else at the table seemed to enjoy their dishes as well. I wish I could remember what they all had, but that second Caddy started to kick in. Alas. At the end of the meal, our waiter put a miniature sombrero on my niece’s head and we all sang “happy birthday.” Everybody was off-key, but that’s part of the charm. As was the tiny chapeau.

Hot Town, Summer in the City.

Summer in the SoCal desert isn’t for everyone. But it is for me. No, my neck was not dirty and gritty. But I can attest that the sidewalk was, in fact, hotter than a match head. (I hope people know The Lovin’ Spoonful, otherwise they’re going to think, “What the hell are you talking about, Dave?”) Summer used to be a bargain in the desert. When my kids, now twenty-seven and twenty-five, were young, we’d go because the rates were low. Not so much anymore. Corporate greed, plain and simple.

There’s something about the desert in the summer I find alluring. Haunting, even. I admit that the days can be brutal. But the nights? Oh man, those desert nights. It’s midnight, and the air is still. Not a whiff of a breeze, not a rustle of a palm frond. And it’s 90 degrees. The moon is waxing full. And the mountains that ring the area are in silhouette. Distant and rugged. You almost feel a sense of accomplishment, like you’ve earned it. An “I survived the day, now the night is my reward” kind of feeling. It’s comforting. It’s like the desert is wrapping its arms around you and saying “Everything is going to be okay…but next time maybe work on that carbon footprint.”

The desert can also be a wise ass.

Driving back home to coastal Orange County, taking the 111, to the 10, to the 60, to the 91, following the signs to “Beach Cities,” I always feel a twinge of melancholy. A bit of the ennui. I chalk it up to this thought — you can leave the desert, but the desert never quite leaves you.

Terrific, now I want another Cadillac margarita.

“Mesero…”