Officially, the pool party begins on Friday - but seeing as it's still a weekday, everything is relatively quiet until the afternoon. For the most part, women traveling from the Los Angeles area jump into their cars on Friday afternoon, so that the 2-3 hour drive takes them to the venue just in time for the evening.

From Los Angeles, the I-10 East to San Bernardino is pretty much a straight route to the party, and will get you there in about 90 minutes. The scenery along the way is exquisite and - if you can manage to avoid traffic - the drive is extremely pleasant. As you get closer to Palm Springs the mountains, the desert and the endless stretches of land decorated by huge rotating wind turbines remind you that, yes, you're in California. Anyone wishing to go directly to Palm Springs without stopping in Los Angeles can of course use the Palm Springs Airport.

Even though Palm Springs is generally warm at this time of year, this year they had an unusually warm spell, with temperatures reaching 28 degrees Celcius! And yet, there was a refreshing breeze. Since this is desert terrain, the winds get stronger at night and the temperatures drop - but as long as you've brought a warm jacket, you should be fine.

A golf course lawn runs right by the pool and can be used during the event. But, really, what grabbed our attention was all the booths set up. A stream of tables stretched before us temptingly displaying an expansive array of just about anything, including resources from the lesbian free paper Go! and Ilene Chaiken's social network service OurChart, fashionable brands of clothing and accessories, and items belonging to the ever-popular sex toy genre.

photos courtesy: www.amandafailureprincess.com

translated by rayna