#617. Greetings from Palm Springs - America's Desert Playground

Paul was out in California for a conference in the desert resort city of Palm Springs,located 160 km inland from LA.

It was an amazing place to visit - pity we didn't learn about it sooner. The town is a green oasis in the Coachella Valley desert, and is dominated by the San Jacinto Mountains to the west.

Palm Springs became popular in the early 1900's, as doctors prescribed staying there for conditions they thought would respond to dry heat, but after WWII it evolved into a resort town popular with the "Ratpack"style Hollywood celebrities and is now famous for the Modernist architecture of the mid 20th century, so is still very "cool".

The famous "Kaufman House" built in 1947

#616a. In case you are not familiar with Norman Rockwell's paintings and the "Saturday Evening Post"

Norm captured mid-century America on canvas, including kindly old GP's/pediatricians like Alan Bitner MD in the previous post. Back in 2010, we visited Norm's estate & museum at West Stockbridge in the Barringtons, in western Massachusetts right by where we went skiing last month.

#616. could have been in the Saturday Evening Post

A great picture that Norman Rockwell would have been proud of. Accompanying a story about the cost of health care in this country, in the Business section of today's Times

#615. You know it's going to snow when...

... when you see the Dept of Sanitation's salt trucks out on the street, as was the case this morning. Who needs Accuweather!

and sure enough by lunchtime we were having the 2nd snow accumulation for the month. About 2.5 cm - nothing like the blizzard last month when the Hacks were here, but enough to play in (school's out this week)

And it was nearly gone by the evening as it was replaced by rain as the temperature warms up. Very whacky weather lately. A record low yesterday - below zero(-15C) and -25C in the wind: at those temperature only needs a slight breeze to send the thermometer plummeting, but expected to be back up to 15C tomorrow as warm currents come up the East coast from the Gulf of Mexico

Happy President's Day!

#614. Brooklyn Bridge Park today

A bit different to summer

followed by a "slice" from Ignazio's on Old Fulton Street

#613. More pics of The Blizzard of 2016

#612. Winter storm Jonas, aka "snowzilla"

As predicted at the end of a previous post (#610) it did snow this weekend - but as you probably saw on your local news service, it was an historic snow event with 26.8" (approx 68 cm) recorded in Central Park, just 0.1" shy of the record for a NYC snowfall set in 2006. it snowed for more than 24 hrs, at the rate of 2.5 cm/minute, with strong winds causing blizzard conditions at times, and the roads were closed at 2.30 pm, and public transport shutdown and all the stores closed. Luckily the power stayed on.

The snow ended around midnight and has dawned fine and sunny today - should be spectacular in Central Park, where we will be going sledding today. When Kate thought the kids would see snow for the first time while here, they certainly made it an experience to remember.

#611. Berkshires winter vacation

We rented the Chevrolet Suburban SUV below and the six of us drove up to western Massachusetts to enjoy winter in the beautiful Berkshires and to give the kids their first shot at skiing, at Butternut - which was very successful. The adults had a go too. We stayed for 4 nights, in this cute blue house on a bend of the bucolic Housatonic River, in the village by the same name.

We also enjoyed some short trips to the historic New England towns of Great Barrington, and Stockbridge for dinner at the famous Red Lion Inn. There was a little snow on Monday night then fine but very cold (like minus 6C, feels like minus 12 C) but nice and warm indoors. Although there wasn't a lot of snow on the ground, all in all it was great fun.

#610. Finally - some snow!

For the first time this winter, it started snowing yesterday afternoon - lightly but steadily, from about 2 pm to 6 pm. And it was 3 degrees, so there was only about 1cm of accumulation. But it was enough to create the 'winter wonderland' the Hacks came for.

Significant snow is forecast for next weekend at this stage.

#609. The Hacks are back in town