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Great Shakes, Palm Springs

While in Palm Springs recently, my best friend took her sisters & me to Great Shakes, the most amazing shake shop on Earth.

Great Shakes Menu

Great Shakes Palm Springs

That’s a caramel milkshake. Great Shakes makes their own caramel sauce and whipped cream, both of which they’re generous with. If that’s not decadent enough for you, that’s a MINI DOUGHNUT on the straw, fresh baked. You can’t make this stuff up!

My best friend got a pine nut milk shake. This is where the shop really shone. My BFF & I have both fallen victims to “Pine mouth” or “Pine nut syndrome” & will not suffer cheap Chinese pine nuts, so my friend asked where they sourced their pine nuts from. Quick as a bunny, the girl went to find out! THEN the owner came out, chatted with us, while fresh roasting the pine nuts for her shake.

This shop is doing things right!

Great shakes also has a very endearing supply of old-timey candies & sells gift baskets of retro candy themed by decade.

Definitely check out Great Shakes next time you’re in Palm Springs, CA, but take my word for it, you can get by with the smaller-sized shake. I was challenged into getting a large by a 17-year-old girl (remember being able to eat anything you wanted all day long?) & I have forever sworn a vendetta on her, it was that over-whelming. If someone says “YOLO!” when you’re decided between sizes, they mean it as a threat. 😉 Get the small.

Seattle Japanese Garden Heron

On a lovely 2 Days in Seattle trip, my daughter & I visited the Seattle Japanese Garden. It was blustery day (our umbrella turned inside out, like in the movies!), so we practically had the park to ourselves. This provided lots of time for my daughter to practice her landscape sketching.

Seattle Japanese Garden

Seattle Japanese Garden

This Great Blue Heron is apparently a regular resident of the garden. He was so beautiful & still that for a long time, I thought he was a statue! I was SO MAD that I had forgotten my camera & only had my phone camera with us.

The Seattle Japanese Garden is open March 1st through November 30th & costs less than $10 a person to visit. The garden is beautiful even in late winter, but puts on a spectacular show in the spring & summer.