Welcome to July when the temperature in the water approaches a snuggly-warm-bath and happiness is a sturdy pool float, the smell of coconut tanning oil and the icy chill of your favorite beverage. Ethan Kaminsky captures it. Everything But Water, Palm
Desert, provides the unnecessary suit.

The founder of Jazzercise, Judi Sheppard Missett, has found a gome in Palm Desert, where you’re likely to find here at the Community College Center leading an occassional class. As you’ll read, she’s fallen hard for the area’s charms.

Gregg Alexander teaches water aerobics, one of the most healthful ways to get and stay in shape. (It’s safe because your skeletal system is supported during the exercises, thus eliminating one of the biggest causes of spine injuries.) The photography accompanying the story (as well as the one on this page and the
cover) is Ethan Kaminsky.

For years, this was the desert’s real dress code: Bathing suit required. What else would you suspect from an area where the sun shines 360 days a year? Take a nostalgic trip through the PLS archives as we reminisce about the swim suits that helped put Palm Springs on the map.

What could be morerelaxing on a hot August day than this beautiful cover by Arthur Coleman, takenin 1993 at the opening of the Oasis Waterpark in Palm Springs? We’d say morebut, hey, we’re beat.

For years this was the desert’s real dress code: Bathing suit required. What
else would you expect from an area where the sun shine 350 days a year? Take a nostalgic trip through the PSL archives as we reminisce about the swimsuits that have put Palm Springs on the map. Running the gamut from scantily-clad movie stars to those unknowns you wish you knew better, this photo feature is a keeper.

Many say the desert is out of this world but this may be the first photographic proof. Computer artist Hal Lester works from an idea by the late Candy Jernigan.

One thing that makes the desert a world apart is the hours the residents keep. Most other resorts thrive at night. We do our share of midnight howling, too, but the big time of day in the desert is early morning. Way early morning. In fact, we get more done by nine that most places do all day. Come along with photographer Ethan Kaminsky as we explore the a.m. options. Watch for celebrity faces.

The desert’s unique flora also set it apart from anywhere else. That and our weather. This past winter, for example, while the rest of California and the world buckled under the pressure of El Niño’s violent storms, we witnessed only one result: The little extra rain gave us the most gorgeous explosion of desert wildflowers ever. Photographer Tom brewster caught the images. (be sure to open the big fold-out.)