Last week I was in Texarkana. The one in both states of Arkansas and Texas.

When I left the hotel it was brisk 23 degrees F, but it didn’t seem that cold. I guess with all my trips to the east coast this year I must be getting acclimated to the cold. I had to meet with my client and then fly out to LAX at noon.

Once the meeting was over, I began to think about the weekend. I had a couple options, knowing the weather wasn’t going to be great. One was backpacking in the San Jacintos, which was going to require snowshoes, given that the incoming storm was predicting 2 to 4 feet of snow. The second option was we could go camping, but forecasted heavy rains can make desert travel difficult with road closures and flash floods.

PLAN A

I don’t really care for cold weather, but each year I try to do a couple snow trips. I have been in a few snow storms that dropped several feet of snow and have the gear to stay safe and warm. For me it is easy to do a snow trip – I just hop on the Palm Springs Tram and quickly am at 8,500 feet elevation. This eliminates the logistical problem of driving with snow chains should I decide to head somewhere else. Plus, not many people venture into the San Jacintos when the weather gets bad.

A quick check of the weather wasn’t encouraging. Winds at 27 mph with gusts of 69 mph. And this was at the Palm Springs Tram Station where it hadn’t started to snow yet. Weather would be even worse near the peak of San Jacinto. With snow laden tree branches and high winds it is not the best scenario. Falling limbs and entire trees would be likely. So I scratched that plan before I even left Arkansas.

PLAN B

I arrived at LAX at 3:30 pm, and found myself in some serious rain. 5 ½ hours to drive 131 miles, with the little man in my radio telling me that over 1,000 homes had been evacuated due to mud slides and debris flows. Not encouraging. But often my desert is exempt from these storms, as the surrounding mountains keep the weather out of our valley – that is why it is a desert.

As I approached Palm Springs the rain stopped. There were a few stars blinking through the scattered clouds; meaning maybe a camping trip was in my weekend forecast.

Normally I don’t take Highway 111 into Palm Springs. I should have. Exiting at Indian Canyon Drive, I found it was closed due to flooding. Opps. When the weather is bad, there are only two roads into Palm Springs that remain open – Highway 111 and Ramon Road. I soon found that Gene Autry Trail and Vista Chino were closed due to flooding and drove south to Ramon Road and circled back to our house.

Probably not a good idea to go camping – which I confirmed Sunday morning when I saw all the roads were still closed.

PLAN C

Over the past 6 months we have spent only a couple weekends at home. Couple that with a hectic work travel schedule that finds me all over the US, it was probably a good idea to stay home for a weekend and get some tasks out of the way.

Anticipating that my office (which sometimes doubles as a guest bedroom) would be high on the boss’s list, I decided to tackle that. I had ordered new cabinets and office furniture, which had been cluttering up the dining room. So this would be a logical choice to keep me on the good side of the boss.

Not to mention that the long suffering ‘man cave’ looking office motif does not sit well with my wife. It’s funny how my stuff (the office) becomes our stuff, while her stuff remains her stuff. Not complaining, it is the woman DNA that causes this. As long as I remember that when she is happy, everyone is happy then life is good.

So the office is almost finished now. Just need to add some cabinet molding and filler strip to the lower right cabinet, and glass tops for the desk pieces. The desk set is 11 feet long.

I have to admit it does look nice and already am finding it easier to stay organized and get my work done.

And it looks like we will be staying at home this weekend too… Joyce is happy with the guest bedroom (aka as my office) and my lovely wife has invited guests to spend the weekend. That’s okay too since it has been about a year since we had visitors.