Palm Springs is a desert region about 2 hours outside of Los Angeles. Wait, now that makes me think.. Who did they think they were fooling by putting a noun that relates to water in the name of that dry as ever area?! I don’t know, maybe I’ll see some springs while in Palm Springs, or find out why it’s called Palm Springs.

This is my first time going to Palm Springs.

Darn, look at me lying. A Halloween or so ago, the Bompton born-and-bred rapper, YG, threw a costume party out in the direction of Palm Springs. I’d have to look thru my iMessage history or Instagram archive to get the exact whereabouts, but it was basically in Palm Springs.

We met up at a house in (or near) Culver City, to board a party bus with two of YG’s special guests, the rather provocative Instagram personalities, the Clermont Twins. On the party bus to YG’s Halloween party in Palm Springs, accompanied by other popular racey girls on Instagram like Matte Brand owner Briana Wilson, we took shots and twerked.

We arrived to YG’s party location in Palm Springs on the bus, we into the party, partied, left and boarded the bus back to Los Angeles.

That’s why I almost forgot about my technical first time in Palm Springs. It was a blur. That doesn’t count, does it?

This time in Palm Springs will count.

Staying in Palm Springs for Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival

I’ve never been anywhere near Coachella, and that’s no exaggeration.

Even though I’ve lived in Los Angeles for 5 years now, I’ve never had enough interest in Coachella to make an effort to go. I’m an outlier, the average LA girl in her 20s is definitely interested in Coachella. And not only LA girls, but people from all over. Upwards of 200,000 people travel to Southern California for the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

I don’t know if it was the talk of the blistering heat, or musical lineups that didn’t appeal to me, but I never got into the hype of Coachella.

This year, it’s different. I’m hyped.

I’m staying at Morongo Casino Hotel and Resort for FREE!

Yep, my stay at Morongo Casino Hotel and Resort for Coachella weekend is complimentary.

In my last blog post on this personal lifestyle blog, I told you all that I’m getting into a different type of gig, and I am, I promise! But I also said that these bills have to get paid honey.

When I received an email about working a series of events for Coachella weekend, including travel pay, daily per diem for meals, and being put up in a hotel in Palm Springs for four days, I couldn’t turn it down.

Currently, I’m typing this in the travel diary section, because it’s technically travel, but I started to put it under the work section, then I noticed this travel diary hadn’t received love in a minute, so heeeey!

Okay, we’re getting out of the car at Morongo now, gotta go! I just wanted to throw a blog post up here now because between working and partying in Palm Springs, I don’t know if I’ll be hitting that daily blog post goal this weekend.

I was planning to go into planning for a Palm Springs weekend, but wind blew me a different way. Ah well. Here’s a new lip gloss I bought for my weekend getaway; hopefully it’s a lucky lip gloss that earns me wads of cash tips this weekend working Coachella.

For more aroundLA, check out personal suggestion in the blog’s while in Los Angeles section.

Okay, this is my second time doing this and both were good, so I had to come share.

This morning I had a 6am flight out of LAX, and because I woke up with a persistant stomach ache from the night before, I ended up walking out of the door a tad behind the time I’d told myself I would.

It’s 4:40am and I’m standing outside trying to figure out what to do. An LA metro bus is supposed to be pulling up at 4:45am, but let’s just say the city of Los Angeles does not have the most efficient public transit system. If the bus does come, it’s expected to make it to the stop nearest Union Station at 5:19am and then there’s a 5-minute walk to a shuttle that goes directly into LAX. That shuttle is scheduled to depart Union Station at 5:30am and arrive at LAX at 6:03am. Mind you, my flight starts boarding at 5:45am and Delta usually does this process pretty swiftly.

I need the LA metro bus to come on time. I need it to make it DTLA on time. I need to get into Union Station, but a shuttle ticket, board it and for it to leave on time. I need all of this to happen for me to even have a CHANCE of making my flight.

Or, I need to suck it up and pay $80 for an Uber/Lyft.

What to do? What to do??

The LA metro bus could arrive to the stop, where I need to be picked up, late, or it could not come at all. Neither of these are rare dilemmas in Los Angeles. Then even if I do make it DTLA in decent enough time, the shuttle leaving Union Station could leave late. Or even if the shuttle did leave on time, we could run into traffic on the highway on the way to LAX. This also isn’t uncommon in Los Angeles.

Think fast, T.K.!

Because if you miss this flight, that’ll cost you way more than an 80-dollar ride to the airport (as you know all too well from having to buy new flights more than a few times after missing your original.

I stepped into the middle of the road, peered down the dark street, and saw a bus approaching in the distance.

Yep, I decide to take my chances.

I board the LA Metro Bus and head downtown Los Angeles (that’s what DTLA is, by the way.. I’m trying to type this quickly). I arrive to the bus stop nearest Union Station about a minute and a half early and I take off running towards and into Union Station. I’m zooming down the payment, following my GPS, and I see the shuttle and I run in front of it, juuuuuust in case he was about to pull off in that very moment, he couldn’t. What was he going to do, hit me?

I greet the driver, winded, saying, “Morning! I’m getting on! Let me go get a ticket!” I run to the ticket booth and grabbed my debit card out of my tote bag so quickly, I basically throw it at the lady inside, who didn’t seem to be much of a morning person. (Ma’am, why do you have this shift?!)

I run back towards the shuttle with ticket in hand and the driver was still standing outside of the door. I said, “oh, I’m early! I have time for a picture?!”

“What do you want a picture of, this bus?! Look at all this beauty behind you,” the driver says as he gestures to the palm trees and clean tan architecture of Union Station up against the early morning’s night sky.

He takes two pictures of me and I thank him without even looking, because, load up this bus, sir. I’m not trying to hold myself, nor anyone else, up. Let’s go!

I run onto the bus, still somewhat frantic, and realize there’s no one on it. All the people outside were waiting to board. Whoopsie daisy, didn’t mean to be rude, but I proceeded to enjoy my seat right up front.

The driver held small talk with me, obviously thinking I was graduating high school or entering college, asking me what I’m going to study. I was flattered. He then let all the other passengers board.

We flew down the highway in the more-open carpool lanes and made it to LAX in good time. I politely, but with determination, asked everyone if I could go ahead of them in the TSA and baggage scanning lines because my flight gate was closing.

Say like my Teedie, I got favor. And baby, favor ain’t fair.

I made it. Thank Ya, Lawdt!

Okay, the whole point of this was to tell you that I paid $10 to get to LAX instead of $80!

I highly recommend taking the LAX FlyAway Shuttle when traveling to or from Los Angeles International Airport. Don’t stress yourself out like me though.. Leave your house on time. They’ll take care of everything else from there.

Later, happy people!

I’ve made it to my destination and my girl has finished her work call, so it's time for us to go play in her city.

Comment below or send me a tweet to let me know if you’d like me to add more travel tips to this travel diary.