Palm Springs, CA tour

Bob Stuart

Arizona Pathfinders, a nonprofit volunteer group of the Arizona Historical Society, is conducting a five day tour October 24 through 28, 2016 to Palm Springs, California. Join us for an eventful tour to this region in southern California between the Mohave Desert and the Colorado Desert (a sub-division of the Sonora Desert).

Highlights: Day one – Travel to Palm Springs, California. Day two – A step-on guide will take us on a comprehensive tour of the Windmill area. Afterwards our guide will take us on the grand tour through the Old Movie Colony, Las Palmas, Racquet Club Estates and other secret locations. Lunch will be on your own at one of the many restaurants along Palm Canyon Drive. Shop, sit outside at a coffee house or soda shop and people watch and stroll around the Village Green Heritage Center and visit the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum. Mid-afternoon walk over to the Palm Springs Art Museum where we will have a docent led tour. Day three – Take the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, which has the world’s largest rotating tram cars, from the Valley Station, elevation 2,643 feet, to the Mountain Station located at the 8,516 level of the San Jacinto State Park and Wilderness. Visit the museums and gift shops; view a film of the area and sight see. Lunch will be on your own at the Pines Café. Then travel to Cabot’s Pueblo Museum for a docent led tour of a historic house museum. A large Hopi-style pueblo, built in the Pueblo Revival Style, it contains artwork, artifacts of American Indian and Alaskan Native cultures and memorabilia of early desert homesteader life. Visit Shields Date Garden to see a film about the Romance and Sex Life of the Date Palm. Packaged dates can be purchased at the gift shop. Dinner will be at the Jackalope Ranch, a castle-like oasis in the desert. Day four – Travel to the northern entrance of the Joshua Tree National Park, meet a step-on guide and tour the western portion of the Joshua Tree National Park. Lunch at the rustic 29 Palms Inn at the Oasis of Mara. Then we return to Palm Springs via the eastern portion of the Joshua Tree National Park, exiting at the southern Cottonwood Visitor Center. Day five – Return to Tucson via Yuma, Arizona where we will have lunch at Lutes Casino.

Cost is $1,170 per person double occupancy. $1,406 single occupancy. Full cancellations accepted until September 19, 2016. Thereafter, only if we fill your seat. Please contact Bob Stuart at 520-825-4239 or Mary Flynn at 520-579-7508.