Home  The All New Blog California: Choice 2000, Perris and Palm Springs
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California: Choice 2000, Perris and Palm Springs |
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Written by Stephen Baines
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Monday, 14 June 1999 |
To finish off last night, I decided to go for a salad - this one being a Shanghai Chicken Salad, which came with not only the requisite piles of greens, peppers, chives and chicken, but also a delicious peppery sauce and crisp noodles. I was prepared for the size of the portions after last night, so I wasn't as surprised when the last small amount defeated me.
Monday started with breakfast. The breakfast menu consisted of an array of options that sounded too light (half a grapefruit) to too heavy (half a pig...). I found an option that sounded as if it would be fairly light - a Breakfast Club sandwich. The description said it was raisin loaf toast with bacon, fruit and honey. A bizarre combination (to my mind, anyway!), but at only $5, it was not only reasonable but sounded like I'd manage it. The sandwich arrived - all 5 layers of it, all packed with bacon, a separate drum of honey, and mounds of fruit. Needless to say, once again breakfast well and truly set me up for the day - some 10 hours later, I'm still not feeling the slightest bit hungry. I checked out of The Queen Mary, found the car, and set off on the road to Perris...
Perris is a small city(!) roughly half way between Long Beach and Palm Springs, fairly close to the March Air Force Base. To get there I had to drive through the San Jacinto mountains, which were truly magnificant! The definition of city seems to be somewhat different in the states, but I soon found the Perris Schools District Authority Building, thanks to the Neverlost, which has got me out of more than one scrape already. Myque Jeffers greeted me at the Choice 2000 Project, and showed me around the facility. There is a single room of computers which the students may come in to use, but the vast majority of the time the students work at home. One student was in, and I spent quite a long time talking to her and her mother about the school to find out their views about the place. I then spent a long time chatting to the teachers and seeing how they delivered lessons and materials using computers and telephones. It really was a fascinating place, and a truly fascinating project. We were able to talk not only about the school, but the education systems in both the US and the UK, and even France.
Once the day had finished at Choice 2000, I set off for Palm Springs, via the petrol station where I admitted defeat, and went in "excuse me, I'm terribly sorry, I must seem awfully thick..." After the now customary "You're English, right?" and comments about Robin Hood when I mention Nottingham (next time I'm going to say Derby or Leicestershire) they showed me how to operate a US petrol pump - one tank of petrol $10 please!
Nothing quite prepared me for the drive - or the temperature. For most of the journey I had trouble keeping my eyes on the road - thankfully they were pretty straight - as I drove slack jawed at the sight of the mountains and the savage desert around it. It was magnificant, at one moment making you realise just how insignificant you are, at the next turn how slim is our tenure as the signs warn of rock slides, with the mountain cliffs within a foot of the edge of the road, and in places a foot or two into the road. I pulled into a Interstate side shopping centre, and got changed into something more casual (and cooler) for the rest of the drive.
Further on into the mountains and deserts was a scene out of Tellytubbies, with the windmill farms of the desert creeping in, and trying to take over. The roads became twistier as man gave up his struggle against the mountains, and decided it was easier to go around. Then eventually, I hit Palm Springs - a surreal site, as the desert (where even local plants gave up the fight long ago) suddenly gave way to green - no, not green, but GREEN - grass. Garden after garden of GREEN grass amongst the arid landscape. I eventually found the Wyndham Palm Springs, and after yet another customary "Oh my me!" at the sight of the place, I got checked in, and up to my room, where I'm now deciding what to do for the evening. |
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