Welcome to Palm Springs, California. My family went there for vacation in the summer of 2002. This was the view from the backyard of the house we stayed at. It was on the 18th tee of one of the many golf courses in the area. Being in Palm Springs was unreal -- the communities have artifically laid grass and trees that are watered multiple times per day. But the rest of the town is surrounded by nothing but desert sand, and in the near distance are large mountains, like the one in the background of this photograph.