Living The Life In Palm Springs: GOD'S WAITING ROOM

I moved to Palm Springs in January 2016 during a divorce at the age of 70. It wasn't my first time here and once here I thought of the number of times I had been here starting with my first visit in July of 1959.

New friends I met here gladly gave me advice on how to deal with the summer heat. You get thermal curtains, keep them closed all summer, strip naked, crank up the A/C and catch up on all the shows you missed all winter. Because a Chicago winter is keeping you in, is a Palm Springs summer is also keeping you in. You don't hang out much in our summer either unless you have a pool. Because of the visible age disparity here I was also told, wink wink, this was God's waiting room!

My mother's brother and his wife lived in Highland Park so in 1959 we used that as our base to visit all the tourist attractions of SoCal. My sister had turned 5 and that was considered old enough to go to POP (Pacific Ocean Park in Long Beach), Marineland, Knott's Berry Farm and, of course, Disneyland.

But my dad got tired of all that and despite my uncle's warning, wanted to visit Palm Springs! Yes, it had a kind of mystical appeal even back then.  So we drove out in mid-July in our 1951 Nash Ambassador (an upside down bathtub with fins), no A/C, to weather that was about about 115º. We gasped in the heat, every window open because it was NEVER that hot in Portland, OR. Driving into Palm Springs on Palm Canyon the first thing I noticed was there weren't any cars, anywhere. Nor any people either. Stores had signs "closed for the season" and finally I asked, "Is this a ghost town?" Eating at about the only restaurant in town that was open, the waitress told us few stay here in the summer. No kidding.

Over the years I visited friends, came to weddings and in the winter had get away weekends before and after kids. There was a great water park near where I now live.

After I moved here I was amazed at the amount of activities that go on from late September to about Memorial Day. The streets were full of snowbirds and there were times I thought I was in Canada there were so many Canadian license plates on the roads.

250,000 fans see Rock 'N Roll
over two weekends

January has the Film Festival where I binge on movies from around the world, Desert Open Studio Tour where artists open their studios throughout the entire Coachella Valley for three days over two weekends. Modernism Week celebrates Mid-Century architecture and living in what is the capital of Mid-Century ethos. Visitors came from around the world in an 11 day trip to the past. The irony is $5-10,000 cabins for winter living are now $1-3,000,000 homes that have mostly been rebuilt to stand the desert heat!

The BNP Paribus Tennis Tournament brings tens of thousands as the greatest names in tennis compete in Indian Wells. Then there's two 3-day weekends of Coachella with 125,000 rock fans flooding every available room and camping site. Next come Stage Coach with 100,000 western fans. The list goes on and on. Many themed LGBTQ+ events occur throughout the year as well.

The one big thing since I moved here though has been the amount of building. Disney is building a huge resort that includes over 2,000 homes starting at $1,000,000. In fact I bought my condo for $140,000. It is now valued around $300,000. My mortgage is cheaper than what I would pay for rent in the same space by more than half. The median home price today in Palm Springs is $1,000,000.

The dirty little secret in this valley is the lack of ''enough" medical facilities. Just to get an appointment can be a weeks long if not a months long process. You learn to NEVER refuse a doctors appointment and automatically asked to be moved up if there's cancellation. Example: after going through 11 catheter changes in two months and refusing to see my urologist, my appointment made in November is this March. Another referral had me go to the University of California at San Diego in what was a nine-hour road trip. I was glad I went but I'm 80. Luckily a friend came with me as I petered out coming home. Fortunately both Desert Oasis Health Care and Eisenhower have Immediate Care clinics (my home away from home). But does that make up for actually seeing your PCP, Cardiologist, Urologist, etc.? Not to me. 

The massive Disney Cotino Bay is in,
I might add,  the desert!

Cities here are all hot to build build build not considering the strain that puts on infrastructure. More doctors, nurses and technicians are desperately needed for an ever expanding, aging population. That, not building, needs to be a priority of every city in the Coachella Valley. The average age in Palm Springs is well over 60 and heavily Gay. I imagine wealthier cities average that age average and more.

 Lest we forget this valley has gone through many a boom and bust. I once had a boss who owned a condo that he sold a decade after purchase in the 1990's for the same price he bought it for. That is actually a net loss. Should health care reach a critical mass people will look elsewhere to retire just as Canadian property owners have sold their homes after Trump became president. 

I love it here but I certainly didn't expect investing 25% of my time chasing doctor's appointments and driving to get there.

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