Tesla parked roadside with the snow-dusted San Jacinto Mountains rising under a deck of clouds beyond
Tesla parked roadside with the snow-dusted San Jacinto Mountains rising under a deck of clouds beyond

Palm Desert wasn't on a list. It happened because I had a balance of Marriott Vacation Club points that were about to expire, and I'd happened to find them on the discount page they used to surface and have since hidden. Five nights at Marriott's Shadow Ridge II — The Villages in early-to-mid February 2025 worked out to almost the entire remaining balance, so the destination was decided by the math.

It was also the first long, multi-stop drive I'd taken the Tesla on. Up to that point all my EV driving had been around the Central Coast and the occasional run up to the Bay — never something where I had to actually plan a route around chargers, find lodging-adjacent ones, and trust the car to handle hours of highway in unfamiliar territory. It handled it without complaint, including the long, almost meditative stretches across the desert into the Coachella Valley.

February in the desert

If you live on the Central Coast, February is a long grey month. Palm Desert in February is something else. Daytime in the upper 70s, evenings cool enough for a jacket, and the sky doing things a coastal sky just doesn't do — long horizontal cloud banks pinned to the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto ridges, with the sun dropping straight through the gaps in the late afternoon.

Dramatic horizontal cloud bank over the Santa Rosa Mountains, palm silhouettes in the foreground Tall cumulus stacking up over the desert mountains, palms silhouetted against the bright sky A sun dog — partial rainbow halo — visible over a tile roof and palm fronds The same sun dog, framed lower through black palm-tree silhouettes

The sun dog above was a first for me — that little partial rainbow you sometimes get at exactly 22° from the sun, when the cirrus clouds upstairs are doing the right thing with ice crystals. I'd read about them; I hadn't seen one. Two appeared in the same afternoon.

The drive in

The drive in is also where the EV-trip novelty hit. There's a particular kind of attentiveness you develop when your range planning matters — looking at what's at each charger stop (food? bathroom? something that justifies the twenty minutes?), reading state-of-charge against the next leg, and learning that "fast" charging speed is real but you still build the trip around it.

One of those stops, by happy accident, was a Portillo's — the Chicago chain. I hadn't been to one since my trips to Chicago years ago, where their thinly-sliced Italian beef sandwich became enough of a fixture for our family that I'd call it a family heirloom at this point. Walking into one again, in California of all places, on a charging stop of all reasons, was the kind of small thing that improves a long drive out of proportion to the actual sandwich.

Snow-capped San Jacinto from the highway, cars in the foreground, a cloud bank capping the peaks Tall palm tree by a road with the snowy San Jacinto range stretching across the background Palm tree, a parked pickup, and the snowy mountains beyond Snow-capped San Jacinto rising over a Costco store — the mountain backdrop is real even from the strip-mall

That last one is unironic. The first time you pull up to the Palm Desert Costco and the mountain wall behind it is that tall and that snowy, you take the picture. There is no part of the Central Coast where the strip-mall errands have a 10,000-foot snow-capped backdrop.

The resort

Marriott's Shadow Ridge II — The Villages is the back half of Shadow Ridge — newer build than the original, tucked behind the golf course, with lagoons running between the villa rows and a fountain at the entrance. The grounds did most of the work of selling the trip.

Shadow Ridge villas — tan stucco, tile roof, tall palms, the Santa Rosa Mountains rising directly behind
Shadow Ridge villas — tan stucco, tile roof, tall palms, the Santa Rosa Mountains rising directly behind
Villa exteriors viewed from a balcony — palms, tile roofs, mountains in the haze A fairway running between palm rows, Santa Rosa Mountains in the distance Courtyard between villas with palms and a clear view to the mountains The entrance fountain — water feature, palms, mountain backdrop Inside the villa — bed, balcony door, the courtyard visible beyond Villa kitchenette and living area — the standard Vacation Club two-bedroom layout

The lagoons have a small population of black swans, which I didn't expect and which became a small ritual on each morning's walk:

A black swan with a bright red beak gliding on the resort lagoon The same swan dipping its head to feed, ripples in the calm water

Sunsets, blue hour, and the food

The resort restaurant became the default plan for dinner. I'm not a big fish eater — I'll order it but I'm rarely the one excited about it — and the salmon there caught me off guard. It's the only piece of fish I can remember in the last few years that I'd actively re-order.

Pomegranate martini at the resort restaurant patio, the sun setting over a palm-lined lagoon beyond the rail
Pomegranate martini at the resort restaurant patio, the sun setting over a palm-lined lagoon beyond the rail

Most evenings the sky did the work for me — the best sunsets of the trip happened from a patio chair on the resort grounds.

Golden sunset reflected in a resort lagoon, palms framing the horizon Lagoon at twilight — palms in silhouette, water mirror-still Fairway and palms in the blue hour right before sunrise Pre-dawn lagoon — palms reflected, the sky just starting to take colour Moonlight breaking through clouds over the palm canopy

The tram, and a peak my father had taken me to

The big day-trip out was the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway — the rotating tram cars that climb out of Chino Canyon and deposit you at Mountain Station, just inside Mt. San Jacinto State Park. Eight thousand five hundred feet up, a vertical mile above the desert floor, in about ten minutes.

I'd thought of these as the San Gabriel Mountains at first — they're not. The San Gabriels are the LA-side range, north of the city. This is the San Jacinto range, the one that looms over Palm Springs proper. Easy to confuse if you've been there once, decades ago, with someone else doing the driving.

The tram base station building, cliffs and clouds rising above View through the cabin window — pine trees blurring past, support cables overhead Cables stretching down toward the valley from inside the cabin A tram car suspended on the cable above the rocky canyon Arriving at Mountain Station — fog rolling through the pines Metal staircase descending granite at the station, fog erasing the surrounding view

Climbing out of the tram into pine trees and 40-degree air, after a morning of 78°F desert sun, is one of those temperature deltas you don't quite believe until you're in it. There's snow on the slopes a few minutes' walk from the station. The pines are the kind that grow at altitude — short, twisted, gnarled where the wind got to them.

It had been long enough since I'd been here that I'd forgotten until I was halfway through the hike. My father took me here when I was much younger; the tram, the temperature swing, the boulders. The recognition came piece by piece as I got further along the trails — that particular outcrop, that view down the canyon, the gnarled tree on the overlook.

A long view from the trail — clouds breaking over the Coachella Valley below, pine trees framing the foreground
A long view from the trail — clouds breaking over the Coachella Valley below, pine trees framing the foreground
A sandy trail winding through tall pines on the San Jacinto slope A wooden footbridge crossing a small drainage in the pine forest Two granite boulders forming a natural archway over the trail A massive weathered boulder with a pine growing beside it in the fog A gnarled, partially dead tree on a rocky overlook with the valley far below Stormy clouds spilling over the jagged cliffs of San Jacinto Patches of snow on a rocky slope near the peak The Coachella Valley framed through a window between pine branches

The signal up there is, oddly, fine — fine enough that I took a work call from somewhere I'd guess was around 8,500 feet, sitting on a rock with the entire Coachella Valley spread out below. I would not recommend this as a setup for every meeting, but for the meeting I was on, "outdoors at altitude in a state park" turned out to be an upgrade.

Palm Springs airport visible from the peak — the runway as a tiny line on the valley floor The Mountain Station viewing platform with the valley sprawl beyond Storm clouds rolling in across the Coachella Valley, viewed from above

The restaurant up at the station is Peaks — fine-dining at 8,500 feet, and the part of the trip I'd specifically come back for. I didn't have a reservation this time and they were full; the casual cafeteria a level down filled in fine, but next trip Peaks is the plan, and I'll book it before I leave for the desert.

A side trip — the Salton Sea

One afternoon I drove south to the Salton Sea, the inland sea created by accident in 1905 when an irrigation canal failed and pushed the entire Colorado River into a below-sea-level basin for two years before it was sealed. The shoreline is strange in person — long, flat, salt-crusted, gulls overhead, more like a coastline than a lake, the water unnaturally still.

Wide panorama of the Salton Sea — flat water, distant mountains, overcast sky Sun rays breaking through cloud cover over the Salton Sea The Salton Sea shoreline under a heavy cloud bank, the water very still

It's a place that's hard to read — somewhere between recreation site, ecological cautionary tale, and accidental landscape. Worth the drive once.

Closing out

Five nights, no fixed plan, the Tesla doing the long-haul work, weather cooperating, points used up rather than wasted, and a peak that turned out to be a memory. The whole reason this trip happened was a balance about to expire — but it's the trip I'd take again voluntarily, and the one I keep telling people about when they say they want to go somewhere warm in February without flying.

If I do go back, the reservation at Peaks is item one.