Dinner is at Barrio Café, a likeable neighborhood Mexican joint and yet another restaurant along my journey helmed by a lesbian. While eating cochinita pibil I rifle through Scruff. It’s been several days since I’ve gotten any action and that must end tonight. I decide to woof only the hottest guys and several hours later find myself on a date at ‘70s inspired lounge the Thunderbird with Sean, a bearded cutie who works as a server and bartender at Rise Uptown Hotel. I learn that in protest of all the bikini-clad cocktail waitresses working the pool’s Lylo Swim Club, Sean showed up one day in a tiny swimsuit of his own and never looked back. Apparently, he’s even brought in enough gays that it’s become something of a LGBTQ-friendly hangout. We never make it back to his place or mine, but still manage some fun together.
DAY 12: PHOENIX TO PALM SPRINGS
I grab morning coffee and a donut from Shortleash Hot Dogs and Rollover Doughnuts and put pedal to metal. In just a few hours I’ll be poolside and naked at Descanso Resort in Palm Springs, but thanks to weird weather across the West, I arrive in the Coachella Valley during a downpour. I’ve been to Palm Springs dozens of times and have never once seen it rain. I love how the winds gusts are making the palm trees sway like they’re doing the boogie at a disco.
Descanso Palm Springs (Photo by John Ellis)
Descanso Resort is simply lovely. Sibling to upscale Santiago Resort, one of the city’s dozen small hotels aimed at gay men, Descanso is a hair smaller, but identical in top-drawer amenities (like an outdoor misting system, a poolside shower, a 24/7 snack and beverage bar, king beds in every room, and the friendliest service in the desert.
Unlike Santiago’s Southwest vibes, Descanso is lush and full of native plants. The furnishings are more angular and mid-century inspired, and the color palette is composed of various shades of green: lime, moss, and forest among them, so that the entire resort feels a dash tropical.
What I love most about every gay resort is that the hot tub always serves as the de facto town square. Because of the pouring rain, we have all been sucked into it like gay moths to a gay flame, our knees knocking together as we go one by one around the tub introducing ourselves. Among the inhabitants are a duo from San Francisco who both have ample phalluses we all want to bow down and pray to (both guys look like they arrived straight from Folsom Street Fair and it turns out they live on that street). There is also a young vegan couple from Oakland who are raising three kids, and two handsome gents from Portland. A couple from Phoenix will show up later and I’ll fool around with the younger of the two in the swimming pool late at night. Meanwhile, attentive resort staffer Holden circles the tub often with a bottle of chardonnay, and we all watch our wine glasses fill simultaneously with both vino and raindrops.
Nobody in this bubbly tub can hardly believe I just spent two weeks driving the back roads of America all the way from P’town to Palm Springs, especially given the fact that I live a mere two hours away in Los Angeles. But with my glass of wine in hand I lean back, sigh and tell this submerged circle of cuties the same thing I’ve told everyone on this incredible journey through our messy but beautiful republic: sometimes it’s better to take the long way home.
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