Our first desert escape of 2025 involved several of our favorite Palm Springs things.

As all meaningful visits begin, we savored coffee at Koffi, delighting in its oasis-like setting.

The next stop was the Vintage Market where we meandered up and down every aisle, ogling all the oddities on display.

For us, the Vintage Market is really just one huge open-air museum. It is a treasure trove of, well, treasures!

My purchase was this Griffon Leather Sewing Case. Made in Austria, it contains Italian made scissors and pinking shears manufactured in Japan. So international!

The Griffon Cutlery Works was founded in 1888 by Albert L. Silberstein. Located in Manhattan, they manufactured razors and a great many types of scissors, including pinking shears, nippers and manicure sets, as well as Ladies' Button Hole scissors. Their trademark registration also mentions embroidery scissors, poultry shears, barber shears, tweezers, pushers, blackhead removers, and nose hair scissors. Very diverse. I'll stick with my sewing tools.

A very cool discovery was also timely. This was a fantastic collection of Jimmy Carter campaign pins.

A highlight was a connection with friends met in Tahoe: Erin, Sharon, and Darin. Sharon has rented a condo for a month in one of my Happy Places (Palm Springs). I plan to visit a couple more times before she leaves. Woohoo.

We concluded the day with an amazing dinner at Luchador Brewing Company in Cathedral City. Highly recommended, it lived up to its hype. We'll be back. What a day!

"I cannot even imagine where I would be today

were it not for that handful of friends

who have given me a heart full of joy.

Let's face it, friends make life a lot more fun."

-Charles R. Swindoll

We spent New Year's Day in SeaWorld. This was the first time my granddaughters had ever been to an amusement park and they absolutely loved it. Turns out they are thrill ride lovers!

Born in 1965, Corky, and other members of a pod were captured for, and sold to, Marineland of the Pacific.

Marineland opened ten years before SeaWorld and one year before Disneyland. Located at the tip of the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Los Angeles County, it was the largest oceanarium in the world. Five million dollars ($58 million in today's dollars) were invested in the project to make it the most unusual cultural, educational and entertainment center on the Pacific Coast.