Palm Springs & Indian Wells Tennis

Still in catch up mode with the blog and thought that I would write about our recent holiday in Palm Springs, California. One of the benefits of living on the West Coast is that California is within easy reach, similar in flight time as flying from the UK to Spain, but a little more glamorous in my humble opinion. Betty, Nancy's Grandmother has a winter home in Palm Springs and we were privileged to be invited to stay.

To save some cash, we drove across the US border on a Tuesday evening, stayed overnight in the small town 0f Bellingham. Next morning, up early, we took a EasyJet style flight from Bellingham to Palm Springs in about two and half hours. We landed in bright sunshine, clear blue skies and 80 degrees heat.... it was very enjoyable weather for mid March. We only had a few days and we made the most of it with numerous activities including shops, bars, restaurants and dips in the swimming pool. The two main highlights of the trip were the Living Desert, a local wildlife park and a couple of days at the Indian Wells Tennis tournament.

Firstly, the Living Desert was a great experience to get up close and personal with some interesting wildlife. As you can see by the photos we saw a number of animals, including giraffe, buffalo, goats, snakes, leopards, antelope, giant tortoise, zebras and various birds. We also had a wander into the nearby desert and saw the famous San Andreas fault, which is a major tectonic plate of the earths crust.... aka the reason for local earthquakes.

Onto the tennis tournament, for those who don't know the Indian Wells Tennis tournament is the fifth largest tennis event after the four major grand slams. Fantastic venue, stadium and well attended by a huge number of people. We had tickets for two days and managed to see the Mens singles quarter finals, Womens, Mens semi finals and some doubles matches. Although our seat allocation was up in the "bleacher" seats we a great view of the stadium court, plus we managed to swap to closer seats during the event. Highlights of the tennis was watching Nadal, Andy Roddick and Andy Murray play, although Murray was not on best form and lost his quarter final match. Suffice to say, Nancy and I both had an enjoyable time and planning to go back next year for more sunshine and tennis.