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CHICAGO TO PALM SPRINGS
I flew directly to Palm Springs (127 miles east of LA) on an American Airlines MD80. I'm not a big fan of these planes). This was my first time seeing the Palm Springs Airport and I was quite impressed. It's a small airport but when you step off the plane, you're inside a modern, open-air terminal. Then suddenly, all that disappeared on the way to baggage claim, and passengers are quickly sent into a time warp ... circa the 1960s. It's pretty cool and I hope they don't knock down their old, retro wing.

TRAVEL MEDIA SHOWCASE
I was in Palm Springs to attend the Travel Media Showcase. It's a three-day program that introduces journalists to domestic and international travel representatives. It was being held at the Morongo Casino (next year it's in Kansas City) and the casino resort supplied a van for the 30-minute drive west of the airport. That was good news for me as it meant a shorter trip home. I later rented a car from Enterprise (they came and picked me up from the hotel) and I drove 90 minutes back to my home near LAX.



THE MORONGO CASINO RESORT
The Morongo Casino Resort isn't in Palm Springs but rather in Cabazon, on the 32,000-acre Morongo Indian reservation. The $250-million hotel, which opened in 2004, was much nicer than I had expected. The rooms are soft-colored and quite impressive with their 27-inch plasma-screen, cable-equipped televisions. The tiled bathroom was a good size, clean and had a walk-in glass shower with two frosted windowpanes with willow branches set in between. My biggest complaints about the room were that my plastic keycard didn't work half the time (twice) and the Internet, which is included in the resort fee ($12), was slow and cut out. Interestingly, I learned that California casinos forbid roulette or craps tables. Instead, The Morongo Casino has modified the craps game by using cards instead of dice (how weird) and the roulette wheel is a video (lame). But other than that, you feel like you're in a boutique Vegas hotel; there are just 310 rooms. Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, 49500 Seminole Drive, Cabazon, California; Tel: 800-252-4499.

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