Cheesy, but Fun

March 14, 2012

 Another friend in the park was going on the tour to see all the movie stars homes.  Couldn't get more cheesy and touristy than that, but it sounded fun to me.  I mentioned it to another friend and she thought it would be fun too.  Off we went, 4 ladies. None of the husbands were interested.  They were all Canadians, so I was the foreigner that day. Got into a small bus to spend about 2.5 hours.  Can't even list all the stars homes we went too, it would take pages. Very few still live here, most of them were the old school movie stars of the 40's thru  the 90's. The majority  have passed away. It was very interesting to see how they lived. The neat part is that they took us down the street where my parents used to live to show us the Frank Sinatra home. This is a home he leased before he ever bought here.   My folks did mention that they lived across the street from him.

One of the few that is alive and still living here is Suzanne Summers. She has lived here for 40 years. Interesting thing is that there are no roads to her home. She parks near her home and takes a tram the rest of the way. Very, very private.

Also heard alot of history of the Palm Springs area. There are very, very few 2nd story private homes here. The first mayor, Ruth Harvey, didn't want to spoil the view of the mountains, so that is one of the laws she passed for that reason. Also no high billboards.

There are lots of windmills around here for electricity.  They are huge, about 300' tall. The 3 blades are at least 150' tall.  In the beginning, it was mostly the movie stars that owned them.  It cost 4 million to build one and it takes 12 years to get a return. It is windy here everyday, so there are thousands of these windmills everywhere.

You can also see more windmills in the background.

Notice the height of the car compared to the windmill.

Four ladies having fun after out tour.  Irene, the woman on my left, also geocaches. She has found over 3,000. I'm up to 55. We went out with her one day and found 20. Whew!  Denny and I were exhausted and we were only out 3 hours. She has found 120 in one day.  We took Karen and her husband out one day to see how they would like it. They enjoyed it. We found 4 out of 5 caches. She is the woman on the right.