TENNIS, ANYONE?

Tomorrow, I will reach the 4^th level of “Senior-hood” when I turn 62 years young as they say – level 1 was age 50 & AARP, next was 55 & the Tuesday discount at Ross, followed by age 60 with more discounts & senior menus.  Level 4, age 62, is a good one that includes my lifetime senior pass at National Parks & collecting Social Security! The only thing left is 65 & Medicare – yikes! At least that is still 3 years away. J

It seems that the older I get, the longer my birthday celebration seems to stretch out. This year it started a week early when Lou took me to Palm Springs for a big professional tennis tournament & other assorted sightseeing. Today was my birthday party with Lou’s family, tomorrow my coworkers will take me to lunch & finally it will conclude when my family celebrates with a birthday bash for four of us at the end of the month. I figure I might as well milk it for all I can.

We hit the road early for the drive to Palm Springs on Thursday, March 15. Those of you who read this blog & hear my stories probably know the answer to this question. Guess what my sweetie found for us to check out with only a 4 mile detour off Highway 5? Yep, you guessed it – drum roll, please – a Frank Lloyd Wright designed house…in the farm town of Los Banos of all places!



The Randall Fawcett House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in Los Banos.

We arrived in plenty of time to check out Villagefest held on the main drag of downtown Palm Springs every Thursday. It is a huge street fair that goes for blocks & blocks. It was packed with locals & tourists alike. We had a wonderful Mexican dinner that came pretty close to rivaling Tito’s in San Leandro, my favorite Mexican restaurant.

The Villiagefest held every Thursday in downtown Palm Springs.

Palm Springs honors its dignitaries with stars on the sidewalks - this is former mayor Sonny Bono's.

A bronze statue on Palm Canyon Drive recognizes Sonny Bono who died in a skiing accident.

The weather that had been drenching Northern California for days was heading south & we had a few contingency plans in place just in case. We knew Friday would be the best weather & as luck would have it that was our full day of watching tennis. Lou had bought tickets for the afternoon & evening sessions which included Men’s Quarterfinals, Women’s Semifinals & some women’s doubles.

The Indian Wells Tennis Garden is a gorgeous facility. The grounds are beautiful & the 24,000 seat main stadium is really state of the art. This tournament, the BNP Paribas Open, is the biggest tennis event after the four Grand Slam events – the Australian & French Opens, Wimbledon & the U. S. Open.

Fans are greeted with this mural as they enter Indian Wells Tennis Garden for the BNP Paribas Open (pronounced "Perry-Bah").

The beautiful main stadium seats 24,000 people.

The view from our seats at center court.

Some of the twenty or so outer courts in the complex.

We slathered on the sunscreen, wore our hats & visors, ate the ridiculously overpriced food & thoroughly enjoyed the tennis.  Currently, my favorite male players are Rafael Nadal & Roger Federer. We saw both of them – twice! And Maria Sharapova is my favorite woman player who we saw twice, also.

Roger Federer in his quarter final match - he easily beat Juan Martin Del Potro.

Rafa Nadal beats David Nalbandian in the quarter finals before losing to Federer in the semis.



Victoria Azarenka, the number one ranked woman tennis player in the world.

That's Maria Sharapova serving on the right in her semi final win over Ana Ivanovic.

Apparently Palm Springs takes great pride in saying they have 350 days of sunshine a year – well, we were lucky enough to experience two of the remaining 15. On Saturday we had planned to skip the tennis to take the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway to the top of Mount San Jacinto, but the storm had other ideas. Due to high winds the tram was closed for the next two days & the impending storm looked extremely ominous. We elected to head to the new INDOOR Palm Springs Art Museum instead.

The entry way of the Palm Springs Art Museum.

A blown glass scupture by Dale Chihuly - we first saw his work in Omaha and I fell in love with it.

That afternoon I dropped Lou at the Palm Springs Air Museum for the afternoon while I went shopping & caught up on some reading. It is a wonderful museum with lots of beautifully restored World War II aircraft, but since I’ve already seen enough airplanes to last me three lifetimes, I begged off. After all, it was MY birthday celebration. J

That evening we wandered downtown & ate at a 50s-style diner. Lou asked what I wanted for dessert & I replied, “Guinness!”  It was St. Patrick’s Day & I had fallen in love with Guinness on tap when we were in Ireland. Why couldn’t I have a pint of Guinness for dessert – being 62 has its perks. We found a pub where we had eaten over ten years before on our first trip to Palm Springs. Low & behold they had Guinness on draught.

The storm wreaked havoc with the tennis but they managed to get almost all of the matches played between rain delays on Saturday.  Only the Men’s Doubles Finals didn’t take place as scheduled.  We had tickets for the Men’s & Women’s Finals on Sunday & headed back to Indian Wells. 

Lou figured this racket would help with his eye/hand coordination.

All 6'2" of Maria Sharapova smashing her serve in the finals.

Victoria Azarenka tosses the ball as she serves to Sharapova.

The women's winner, Azarenka, receiving her crystal trophy - and the one million dollar prize!

Fortunately Lou has long arms for these self portraits.



6'9" American, John Isner, beat the number one men's player, Novak Djokovic, to make the final.



Roger Federer's hard serves & great play were too much for John Isner.

Federer receiving his trophy & million bucks amongst the confetti.

We were pleasantly surprised to learn that the Men’s Doubles Final was to be played following the other two matches on Sunday – AND my favorite, Rafa Nadal, & his partner, Marc Lopez, were in the final.  It was a bonus that we decided to stick around for even though we were driving home that evening. We endured one short rain delay but both finals went off as planned with Roger Federer beating John Isner & Victoria Azarenka prevailing over Maria Sharapova.

The coin toss for the men's doubles finals - John Isner returned with Sam Querry to play Nadal & Lopez just twenty minutes after losing to Federer.

Marc Lopez about to hit a forehand while Rafa looks on.

Fortunately, we are still young enough (or stupid enough depending on your take on it) to agree with the lyrics that Jon Bon Jovi sings, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” We settled in to watch the doubles but when the skies opened up again with Rafa & Marc up a set & 2-1 in the second (they went on to win), we decided to hit the road at 4:30 PM. We rolled into our driveway at 1:15 AM after several driver changes. I was up until 2:30 AM after the “Hershey’s Double Chocolate Mocha Cappuccino” that I had from the gas station mini mart to keep me awake kicked in & did its job.

All in all, turning 62 ain’t too bad – and it beats the hell out of the alternative!