So on our last night at the Ace in Palm Springs we decided to go and enjoy the DJ they have featured every weds who spins 45's from the 60s psych surf garage genre (thanks goes to Jason for clarifying).

That was fun, we met this bear, which sat guarding the bottles o booze, poor taxidermy baby brown bear, he stared at Jason all night. 

Next morning we set out to drive to the Joshua Tree, which is a town in the desert, but also another huge national park on the other side of the mountains. It was only a 40 minute drive, so we took our time to soak in the sights along the way.

Good Bye the Ace in Palm Springs!

On the way we passed some more windmill power generator things that we find a little bit eerie and fascinating on our way, the valleys are filled with them.

Before checking into the next hacienda that awaited us, we decided to go straight to the Joshua Tree National Park. 

I think the Flintstones may have come from here.

This is a Joshua Tree, the Park ranger at the tourist centre clarified that these are a member of the Yucca family, they are not a date palm or any other type of tree. The can grow quite big like this one.

The Joshua Tree National Park was beautiful. The below pics should tell the story.

Then we snapped this little beauty, I though he/she was a chipmunk, but he/she is actually a Ground Squirrel, he looks rather large here as we had to zoom and crop this image, they are tiny. They have the cutest white fluffy tails and are very speedy. 

We then left the park to check into our hotel "the Joshua Tree inn" this place was a typical "hotel/motel" style lodging on the side of the highway and was the cheapest we payed for accommodation the whole trip.

This place was pretty historical, in that a few famous desert/country people like to stay and die here apparently. 

We were sooo in the desert man. The dreadlocked wacky tobaccy dude owner greeted us as reception, offered his home made chai (that was actually the tits) and show us to our room while telling us the history of the hotel. 

We were staying in room number 8, which is next to room number 6 where Gram Parsons died. Who is Gram Parsons you say? well I'm not sure either, we must google that one.

Emmy Lou Harris also stays there from time to time, as well as Jimmy Page and now the dude can add Jason from Blood Duster to his musician desert dwellers- yes I hassled Jason to go talk to the dude to ask about booking dinner for us and they got chatting about what was happening in the area, the dude flipped when he knew Jason was from Blood Duster. Next time someone checks in he will regale them with, Gram Parsons died in room 8, but Jason from Blood Duster stayed in room 6. 

Once I knew this place was possibly haunted, I was wigging out on everything. Even a lady that stayed there was exercising her operatic vocals by the pool at dusk, who does that? Jason proceeded to tell me that possibly she is the ghost, and that when he took a photo of her, she didn't show up in the shot.

So for dinner we went to"Pappy + Harriets" a famous ranch style place in the pioneer town of yucca valley, where you can get a great streak that is cooked mesquite style (over an open bbq fire) thanks to Anthony Bourdain's "No reservations" TV show hot tip. (from his ode to the desert episode).

Emma got bored right typing as the pool was calling her name.

We are now in Cancun, Mexico.

I'll finish the update I guess.

How good is this shot by Emma? the band were called "the record company".

they were playing while we ate an awesome meal.

I had the ribs like Anthony Bordain had in "No Reservations"

They were awesome.

Emma had the rib eye as Josh Homme had in "No Reservations".

"Nom Nom Nom" went Emma as she scoffed it down.

So after we ate at this awesome place in the desert, we went to see "the Earthlings?" who just happened to be playing at a venue called "The Hood". 

Nick Oliveri was supporting and it seemed like a big local gathering as Josh Homme walked out and gave Nick a beer before they started.

Seemed like all the Desert Sessions guys were there. they must be all doing Coachella or some shit.

I took a few photos, they are a little grainy as it was so dark and shit and we only had the one lens with us.

Amazing seeing all these guys play with only a cover charge of $5 bucks.

Nick Oliveri.

The Earthlings? ruled it live, Better than on record.

Found a flier online of the show, but no mention of nick, i think he must've just decided to jump on at the last minute.

Outside the Hotel.

 is that red blur Gram Parsons Ghost? or simply an awesome photo by me?

After our breif but awesome sujorn to the desert we drove back to L.A. to catch the Melvins/ Unsane at the Toubadour. 

The Unsane drummer had hurt himself or something so the Melvins drummers both took turns filling in for the Unsane set.

Sorry to everyone that wanted me to buy them a 7" from this show but they were 20 bucks each and I wanted to buy myself more merch. 

I got a show poster and  2 -12"s as well a copy of the limited edish 7" that is only available at the shows.

Good show by the Melvins, although Emma wasn't totally happy as the didn't play only stuff from the 90s when she was really into 'em.

I thought they were awesome.

In the morning we had to get up early to catch our flight to Cancun. and thats where we are now, emma is by the pool reading who magazine or something and I'm in a hammock drinking a Corona and typing wondering what i shall eat next... maybe another lobster?

Fuggin Bang!

palm springs day 2

Yo, its Emma y'all!

(I will type in italic Y'all- Jason)

has anyone seen a hummingbird in real life? we have, yup- that's right yo.

Yesterday was a special day, as I saw not one, but many hummingbirds, humming around our gardens.

The are my newest crush in the animal/bird world. I knew about these sweet little things, but never new how much they fall into all of my specified criteria on an animal. 

They are tiny, they look like a large bee... like miniature in the bird world.

They have amazing colours and plumage, they look almost fluffy in flight.

They have dark black cartoon baby like eyes.

They come in many colours like this one below (I had to steal a pic from the net - thank you frank leung), as Jason was not fast enough to catch a snap of the ones we saw, but then preceded to tell me that a good snap of the hummingbird in the photographers world is a very prized photo, cause they're little wings move so fast)

He also enlightened me on their backwards flying techniques, the only bird who can.

How lovely is this little one.

OK so after my fussing on my new little friends, I soon got sidetracked by the sun and pool, another few of my favourite things, it was to be 32 degrees on our 1st full day here, rare for this time of year, yeee harrr!  How good is this pic of our pool area? Jealous?

We spent all day here. All day.

I think the whole of Palm Springs may have been here too.

In the evening we went for dinner at our hotel's restaurant (the ace) that was an old Denny's, but now converted into the hotels "roadhouse" themed cool restaurant. Remember Denny's? Mum used to take me and Johnny there for lunch on Keilor rd Essendon, (mmm the memory of the toasted cheese sandwiches with chips- yum!)

Cool? yes it was freezing in there. Yum? not really.

So we ate and left, went to the liquor store, Jason bought a 40 of malt liquor y'all and drank that shizzle.

During the drinking of the 40, our room started vibrating again, like it did the morning before. Minds out of the gutter. I was having flashbacks to Tokyo, Kawasaki, 2005, the last earthquake we both experienced. I kept saying to Jason is that the laundry on spin or is that a tremor?

Jason assured me it was the laundry downstairs. 

Channeling Jan (mum) I though, f*#k this shizzle yo, we didn't pay for no room vibrations.

I called front desk and asked to switch rooms. She proceeded to say, the laundry usually stops after 9pm, I think she caught what she was saying and finished that sentence with, let me see what I can do.

Yep in true Callaghan style we got upgraded to a bigger, fancier room, still no record player though. 

Oh the records Jason could have played.

Anyway, the below picture is of our second room, morning.

Ace Hotel 0 

The Fullers 1

Oh, but the way, we woke up this morning and watched the news and there have been 30ish tremors around the area, so maybe we were upgraded and it had nothing to do with the laundry... should we ring and let them know?

Nope, not happening yo.

We win.

Day 2.

Not the same day as yesterday, stormy and raining, Jason's positive- channelling his inner Helmut Newton- this is the best weather to take photos in. 

We set off to have a day in the shops and take some more snaps and see some of this mid century modern architecture that we have loved for oh so long.

We started at the visitor centre, and this view was across from it. These are those windmill turbine thingy's, I just like this shot.

Then we went off to have breakfast/lunch, oh thats called brunch at the famous "Shermans".

THE Jewish deli in town, I wanted Jason to try a pastrami on rye.

We did just that, and I'm kinda spewing as they were really not as good as New Yorks' Katz Deli, still yum and way huge though.

Then we hit the shops and the highlight of the day was the "Shag" store. One of Jason's favourite artists.

We didn't buy anything as its all expensive, we just looked at all of the amazing 

pieces, all $$, if Shag was going to live anywhere it would be in Palm Springs, possibly he does.

The below pic is of some desert garden in the street, how manicured and 70s.

Ok, we then typed into the lady who takes us everywhere (its called a Navman, not a Navlady), Elvis' and Precillas honeymoon house, and 'voilla' we were in the heart of mid century modern houses. 

Boom!

Elvis' honeymoon house, now privately owned, so you can only view from the street, unless you pre-book a tour, outside view is enough for us.

Someone else's house.

We decided we both like this pointy look and if we were to build our own house in the desert this would be it. 

These pavers to the front door would be nice too.

This Blue with bright yellow and stones looks appealing to the eyeball.

Yup, a classic combination that I will never tire of, peach and aqua.

Another pointy, deserty house.

View from a far, up the street.

This one was ok.

Then we drove back down the street and passed this street banner and Jason got a bit upset. 

I told him there would always be next year.

(I told Emma that "gay" means carpet lickers too. She can always use frequent flyer miles to come back)

Then we found this grass bush that is much like ours in our front yard, but this one is manicured like Grug. 

Honey- I want Grug bush in our front yard. Lovely. 

(looks too much like Beltsy to me).

Das is good yah?

PALM SPRINGS!

So we are now in Palm Springs!

There isn't much to report as yet as we really just spent a day driving from Tucson... after hitting a Wholefoods supermarket for Emma and another record shop for me.

Emma LOVES Wholefoods she spends longer in there looking at carrots and stuff than I do in the record stores, she just wanders the aisles looking at the organic stuff and picking stuff up, putting stuff down.
Saying "I'm going to get a salad" and then not getting a salad. she loves the place and I think it overwhelms her with choice.

In fact I just found a picture from the camera, she's taking pictures of of carrots and junk.
She soooo into this place its not even funny.

We got lost a couple times from missing freeway turn offs and junk as we were trying to avoid doing the same drive we did to get to Tucson.
There are a lot of cactus on the way here. I didn't count them all but there was millions.

We have one of those nav man things and she generally doesn't steer us wrong (Emma's calls her a she) but there is quite a bit of new road work going on that it hasn't been updated with.

I should probably do that today but there is no way I'm going too.
It's like 30 degrees outside and we have a couple pools with bars to enjoy. So no to the Nav man update.

Here is a photo from our hotel door looking outside the hotel.

We are here for a few days so I'll try and update with more photos and stuff tmrw or something.
Maybe I'll bomb people in the pool and get Emma to take photos of the giant splashes that I'll be making.

This is the view from our room looking into the hotel.

Emma also told me that this hotel has some rooms that have record players in em, that's right record players!
She didn't book one of those rooms as I guess she figures I'll just hide in the room and listen to retarded shit all day...  Probably best she didn't really.

It's actually kind of a hipster hotel, everything is pretty cool and "young", I'm going to do my best to be old around this place. I'm going to swim really slow laps where the kids swim and make complaints about the noise the young people are making and that I have water in my ears.

I know I won't be taking advantage of the tandem bikes they have on offer.

 Laters.

Happy easter fm Tucson!

We arrived this afternoon, easter Sunday, drove 2 hours south of  Scottsdale which is a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona.
Scottsdale was an unexpected beautiful place with a strong art and bar scene (we spent about 20% in the art, the rest is kinda obvious).
It was our drive from Vegas to Scottsdale (5 hours) where we started to see the real 'west'.
Before we arrived in Phoenix and Tuscon, we finished up our last days in Vegas with a spot of boot shopping and a crazy amazing helicopter tour of the grand canyon.

 I didn't end up buying a pair, overwhelmed by the choice. Don't you just want a pair?

 This was the start of our Canyon tour, picked up by a Limo, yes this is how we roll.

 The 'Copter.

Up in the air travelling East from Vegas, just about to hit the canyon.

Size of Canyon- see how small we are? 

Outlook of where we landed.

Colorado river that runs thru the Canyon.

Tiny spring wildflowers on the foot of the mountain.

How hot is my husband? he is being all modally, a rare shot.

 This is how I roll in the 'yon.

These were shots take fm the helicopter, flying about the strip at dusk.

Our hotel fm the copter.

This was a shot taken by Jason back at the hotel upon return. Its the view fm our balcony, the famous Bellagio fountain show. How good is this shot.

Vegas = good times.

Then onto Arizona.

Our first Cactus. Amazing.

They really are that big.

Pony fountain in the middle of Scottsdale.

The car show at the Mcdonalds carpark in Scottsdale that happens every sat, some amazing 'merican muscle cars, including this one, chev camaro, strict as.