It has been a while since I have updated my blog. I have been very busy showing homes and submitting offers. Many of the homes are short sales, so they take a lot of patience as they can take up to 3 months to be approved. I know my clients are starting to get impatient with the whole process. Make sure you look for approved short sales. You won't have to wait for the bank to approve the price of the short sale.
Anyway, I needed a break this past weekend so I went to Palm Desert with a couple of my girlfriends. Palm Desert/Palm Springs is only about an hour an a half from Newport Beach. We checked in to the Marriott on 74855 Country Club Drive last Friday afternoon. We left around 12:30 from Newport Beach. I think any later than that we would have been in major traffic. Upon arriving at the Marriott we discovered that our reservation was not in the computer....though we had a confirmation number. Needless to say, they were booked and put us in a suite......in my terms......a conference room. The good thing is that the "suite" had two bathrooms. That came in handy with 3 girls trying to get ready in the morning. After checking out the room, we decided we should get ready for dinner. I wanted to check out a new restaurant, Jackalope Ranch. A friend of mine highly recommended this place. The address is 80400 Hwy 11 in Indio....not far from the hotel we were staying in. I was really impressed with this restaurant. It is over 21000 sq feet! We quickly made our way to the piano bar and ordered appetizers. I highly recommend anything with chicken. We had the chicken nachos and quesadilla. Both were absolutely amazing. I should also mention they have a great happy hour menu. Make sure to be there before 6. Of course we didn't make it there until 6:30. Anyway, definitely check this place out. They have a great outdoor area that opens up to a good size lounge. Service was a little slow.....but well worth the wait.
So the next stop was back to the hotel. We were told that the lounge in the hotel was a great place to enjoy a glass of wine. We stopped in and met many people from other cities. We also met some nice golf players from Paris. They were in for a quick tournament. I can't imagine going on such a long trip and then to only stay for the tournament. Many of the guys were in the states for the first time. We also met some teachers there for a conference.
The next morning we woke up to hurried down to the pool. We wanted to make sure we had great seats by the pool. Lesson learned.....if you want to meet people, sit by the shallow end of the pool. We sat by the deep end of the pool.......6 ft. I get kind of bored of being in the sun and want to meet people. That didn't happen where we were sitting. We still had a great time catching up on girl talk. I recommend ordering a Pina Colada. It really helped me feel like I was on vacation. After 6 hours in the sun, we went back to the room to get ready for the night. I needed to do some work as I was booked to show homes all Sunday afternoon. After showering and booking appointments, we made our way to Palm Springs. I wasn't too excited to drive all the way there....but one of my girlfriends insisted on it. We ended up at a Sushi restaurant. The food and the service were great. Palm Springs is very touristy. There is a cute little downtown area that everyone walks up and down the street visiting restaurants and shops. We went to a Mexican place after sushi. They had live music. I felt like I was hanging out with my mom and dad......it was a little older crowd. Plus, all couples. We decided to go back to the hotel. We met so many nice people the night before, we thought we would try it again. The lounge was very busy. We ran in to the teachers we met the night before and then we met some people that were locals and like to frequent the Marriott. Very interesting investors originally from Israel. They were trying to talk us in to going to the Marriott night club Costas. I guess this is a hot spot in Palm Desert. We were exhausted and declined. Plus, I had a full day of work on Sunday that I needed my rest for.
To recap the trip, I would highly recommend the Marriott on Country Club Drive and Jackalope for a weekend get away. It is a great place to play tennis, golf, or just sit by the pool and relax.
