Tuscany Manor Palm Springs California

We stayed at a Travel Advantage Network resort Tuscany Manor in Palm Springs CA over the past weekend. Maureen works at the corporate office and one of her employee benefits is being able to book vacations at a discounted rate. This is the first time we have taken advantage of this benefit and it worked out perfect with a business trip I was taking to San Diego.

While attending the IFEBP conference in San Diego we stayed at the Hilton San Diego Resort on Mission Bay. The room was spacious, the pool, hot tub and fitness center were excellent. I used the fitness center each day. It include a steam room and sauna. The location was about 4 miles from Sea World and about 10 minutes to downtown were the convention center was located.

On the first free day we did a 59 mile drive through and around San Diego. The drive went by numerous tourist spots in the city such as Harbor Island, Carbillo National Monument, Ocean Beach, Soledad Mountain, La Jolla Park and Cave, Balboa Park and the Zoo. The tour gave us a real feel for the city and where we would want to spend some additional time.

We ate dinner at a number of different restaurants in the Gaslamp quarter and went over to Coronado on the last day. The Hotel del Coronado was something to see. Built in the late 1800's it's housed many presidents and had been the backdrop for a number of movies. There was a museum but we didn't have the time for that. We found a cute little coffee shop and had some exquisite cupcakes and coffee.

Tuesday afternoon I cut out of the conference a little early so we could spend the day at the San Diego Zoo. This zoo has the best animal exhibits I have ever seen. The animals seem to be treated very fairly and have lots of room to roam around. My favorites were the pandas, lions, tigers and elephants. Not much action a the polar bear exhibit which was disappointing. We started out on the bus ride which is included in the ticket price. This gives a nice overview of the entire place. After that we did quite a bit of walking but it was quite enjoyable. There was a sky tram that took us from the far end of the zoo back to the exit when we were through. We did the whole thing in a bout four hours. Make sure and visit here when you visit San Diego.

The next day I wrapped up my conference and we left for Tuscany Manor in Palm Springs. The drive took about 2 1/2 hours but we broke it up with lunch along the way. We arrived about 4 and were greeted by Maureen's coworker Pete who was the general manager of the place. He was very friendly and knowledgeable about the surrounding area. He put us in a nice roomy two bedroom place that had a living room along with a small kitchen area. That evening we went downtown and had a wonderful dinner at The Falls Steak House. We ate on the balcony and had a nice view of the street below and a fountain featuring Sony Bono. We had the three course meal featuring salad, prime rib and dessert. Maureen had the filet and shrimp along with the mud pie. Even though a little pricey it was the best meal we had all week. Afterwards, we walked down the block for the Villagefest which takes place ever Thursday in Palm Springs. There are like 200 vendors with different art, crafts and food items. Maureen picked up this beautiful necklace made from the Connecticut state quarter. I just picked up my favorite food stuffs licorice and beef jerky.


The next morning on Pete's recommendation we set out for Joshua Tree State Park in the Mojave Desert. It wound up being about an hours drive from the resort but we stopped for breakfast at some little hole in the wall along the way. We stopped at the Visitor's center for maps and were given advice from the Park ranger. He advised us of a number of things to see along our route to the western park entrance which was about 30 miles away. The rock formations are quite cool to look at and even better to scramble around on. at the first pull off we saw some people scrambling on the rocks and decided to give it a try. We made it right up to the top with only a couple scratches. The we saw Skull Rock, Sky Rock and tons of Joshua trees. We took a number of pictures along the way. Next we stopped at a trail head for Ryan's Mountain and after I read the sign I convinced Maureen that she could do it and off we went on a three mile hike up to the top of Ryan's mountain. The hike was pretty strenuous without water and at midday but we managed the climb to an elevation of 5500 feet and made it back in just over 2 hours.


Our final destination in the Park was Keys View were there is expansive view of the Coachella Valley, the Salton Sea and being that it was a clear day we could see all the way to Palm Springs.

That evening upon our return we met a nice family from Salt lake city. They were there to visit family for Thanksgiving. We spent 2 hours just hanging in the hot tub and resting our weary bones. Later that evening after Maureen went to bed I went down the street to Ricks Cafe ordered the special and found out later it was Mahi Mahi. I thought it was some sort of steak. The next day when we drove by I realized Rick's was a Cuban Restaurant.

Saturday we did a little shopping had a nice breakfast downtown and spent the afternoon napping and relaxing around the pool. We had an early flight out Sunday and just to be ready.

The flight home on Sunday was brutal. Our connecting flight to Baltimore from Dallas was cancelled and we were rerouted into Dulles airport 6 hours later. We had to spend 7 hours at the airport in Dallas. Once we arrived at Dulles airport we had to get a cab back to BWI to pick up our car. We didn't get in until after 1AM, plus no luggage. The airline did deliver our luggage the next day but it still was not a good way to end a great trip.