Palm Springs Road Trip: Thinking Outside the Glitter Box

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I was thinking more along the lines of posh pool bars, celebrity sightings, patterned shirts and expensive-looking dogs. And while I do find all that in Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley, it also delivers mind-blowing boho quirkiness, geological oddities and an engaging Indigenous history.  

Typical Palm Springs things like the aerial tramway to the peak of Mount San Jacinto and the hiking trails of Indian Canyons top all the travel-tour lists. The supreme natural beauty of this desert oasis has always been a draw, and I like any kind of outdoor immersion that gets me off the sun lounger and into a pair of hiking shoes. Though we do duck our heads into a few chic boutiques and nice restaurants, getting out of Dodge is the priority on this road trip – and the car is full of gas. 

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You never know what you’ll find in the desert. 

Naturally, I brought a pair of swim trunks to Bombay Beach, but wouldn’t feel the need to put them on. On the shores of the land-locked, salt-water Salton Sea, the beach was once a thriving resort town in the 1950s and 1960s, complete with sport fishing, yacht clubs and big-name entertainment like Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and, fittingly, the Beach Boys. But beginning in the 1970s, changes in agricultural irrigation and runoff, water diversion and drought caused the sea to shrink, making it saltier and inhospitable to fish and wildlife. The story of the sea’s environmental problems is fascinating if a bit of a downer – with tales of dying fish and clouds of toxic dust floating all the way to Los Angeles.

Fast-forward to today, when Bombay Beach and the surrounding area – including the nearby transient commune of Slab City – have been reinvented as a destination for desert art, the abandoned structures filled with artists and squatters, the beach converted into an outdoor gallery for installations and sculptures, most of them created from found objects and scrap metal. 

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And while a shrinking dead lake and some spooky art might not seem like a tourist attraction, it is otherworldly and serene, like visiting the abandoned set of a futuristic film. It actually makes a great place for – a picnic: people pop in with their coolers and just take in the tranquility. We follow suit with sandwiches, and also manage pints in the nearby Ski Inn, a no-frills bar on the edge of town with its interior walls covered with dollar bills (so American).  

In nearby East Jesus – more of an art project than an actual town – visitors stop to see a new art installation by multimedia artist Kenny Irwin. Other art pieces comprise “The Most Dangerous Playground,” including “The Monkeybars of Disappointment” and “The Teetertotter of Death.” This community gets its name from an old slang term, where something off-the-beaten-path was said to be “east of Jesus.” 

We find more folk art a few miles away at the religious-themed outdoor “environment” of Salvation Mountain. A giant artwork, years in the making, was created from mud and straw bricks, discarded metal, old tires and an absolute ton of brightly coloured paint. It was the vision of local folk artist Leonard Knight, who began the project in 1984 and expanded on it for the next 30 years, while living on the back of his truck. Now, volunteers work to maintain the various components of its gospel messaging, slathering on more layers of paint.  

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A man with an antler hat sitting in a lawn chair and a very hot-looking dog watch over the sculptures, neither of them seeming very interested in their work or in us. Turns out that walking on painted sand feels very odd. 

Our road trip continues north of the city of Indio, also within the Coachella Valley, as we hop on a Red Jeep Tours excursion that actually drives right on the San Andreas Fault, which runs through the whole state. It is the techtonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. This is the fault line that is at some point predicted to produce “the big one,” in our lifetimes or not.   

We zip through a labyrinth of canyons and ridges, rocks and road runners, with Darrell Black Feather giving an amusing commentary about the geology and seismology, everything revolving around water, wind and time. Once again, the desert doesn’t look like much, but it does if you know what to look for. The plant and animal life, and the indigenous history of this part of the desert is also covered in detail, supported with a walk through a recreated Cahuilla Indian village. 

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A similar step back in time awaits at the Hopi-style historic house Cabot’s Pueblo Museum, just outside Desert Hot Springs. It was built in the late 1930s by desert homesteader Cabot Yerxa out of scavenged materials (I’m seeing a theme here). The Pueblo Revival-style series of buildings contain art and artifacts of American Indian and Alaskan native cultures, along with memorabilia from Yerxa and his wife’s life there.

He was lucky enough to dig both hot and cold mineral wells, naming the homestead Miracle Hill. The site also contains one of a series of 78 giant Native American head carvings by Peter Wolf Toth. The one here, Waokiye, was sculpted from a giant sequoia tree log and unveiled in 1978. 

I remember visiting Palm Springs once when it was so hot, all we saw were pool boys and gardeners – everybody else was hiding indoors. Little wonder the 3,000 wind turbines in the San Gorgonio Pass run non-stop. Yet ironically, most of the energy they produce goes elsewhere, ferried off into the California grid. A wind turbine tour to educate visitors on wind energy is an interesting sustainable tourism spin, testament to how tourist-smart Palm Springs really is.  

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Downtown, we pull into the new Agua Caliente Cultural Plaza, a hub for cultural tourism focusing on the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians of the Coachella Valley. The highlight here is the Cultural Museum, which showcases the region’s indigenous history with collections of artifacts, photos and dioramas, video stories a cool timeline video. The plaza also includes a gathering place, gardens and a walking trail, plus the new 40,000-square-foot Spa at Séc-he, built on a sacred hot springs. The tribe has been sharing the mineral-rich waters with visitors for more than 120 years. 

Before heading to the airport, we indulge in a small bit of glam, a Palm Springs Mod Squad architecture tour of the multiple Mid-Century Modern homes in various neighbourhoods of town, bungalows built for Hollywood stars and locals alike. The guide dissects the different architecture styles, pointing them out along with the houses of a few Hollywood stars, Leonardo DiCaprio, Liberace and all. 

We climb out of the van to get a closer look at Frank Sinatra’s former home, but are unceremoniously shooed away from the truck that is unloading party supplies. I guess my invitation must have gotten lost in the mail. 

The writer was hosted by Visit Greater Palm Springs. No one from the tourist board approved of or vetted this story before publication. 

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