While perusing a Palm Springs hotel lobby last February, a red brochure caught my attention. Pictures of dramatic desert landscapes intrigued me. Desert Adventures … what’s that? Lacking the time to explore my interest, I locked it away for a future adventure. A year later I returned with a friend to discover the secrets of the desert.

     Wearing worn jeans, tattered sweat shirts and dingy sneakers, we arrived at our adventure to find a bright red jeep, three country club vacationers and an anxious guide. Fashionably late with bagel sandwiches in hand, we received curious looks from our adventure companions. Our sandwiches became an ice-breaker as they jokingly asked if we brought some for everyone.

     Over friendly jokes, our guide, Bruce Poynter of Palm Springs passed a waiver around, and we added our names to the three other visiting patrons, Armand and Janise Desrosies of Bedford, N.H., and Peggy Desrosies of Hudson, Mass.

     Anxious to leave, we piled into the jeep and fearlessly headed toward the desert. Poynter’s voice flowed steadily over the wind as he began to captivate us with his knowledge. We soon learned that there was hardly an occupation or interest that Poynter had not pursued.

     His qualifications included: ambulance driver, paramedic, licensed real-estate agent, fire department captain, animal care volunteer, rattlesnake collector for venom research, amateur photographer, avid hiker and self-educated geologist and botanist.

     His vast knowledge made him an effective guide. The topics of our tour ranged from Native Americans, rock formations and botany to Palm Springs economics.

     Our first stop was in the Salton Sea, which Poynter explained is the largest land mass below sea level this side of the Western Hemisphere. Here we became "Jojoba Witnesses," ac-cording to our guide, as he directed our attention to a field of Jojoba plants. Poynter gave us heads of cauliflower during this agriculture section, making it clear that he had gleaned the leftover stalks rather than cutting the plant itself.

     Over a stream of corny jokes, our fellow companions became like distant relatives, cooing over our college accomplishments and trying to set us up with the boys back home. We learned about a daughter preparing for graduate school, husbands who travel, a son in college and winters on the East Coast.

     As we paused to admire the turf grass farms, we began to wonder when our desert adventure would start. Then, we rounded a bend and entered a private ranch, and what began as mildly interesting tree-lined faults soon lead to spectacular rock formations.

     We found ourselves intensely off-roading — at one point there was less than an inch on both sides of the jeep between huge boulders. Along the way, Poynter identified medicinal plants and close-cutting canyons and told us about the mating dances of turkey vultures.

     During the drive, we made two stops to hike fault lines, where Poynter highlighted the intricacies of desert life and the history of the rock formations. We hiked through canyons that flash flood when conditions are right, and slid through fault lines so narrow that rocks nearly scraped us on both sides.

     The hiking whetted our appetite for more hands-on adventure, but our tour was more jeep-oriented. Our guide told us that other tours offer more intense hiking.

     After our brief hike at the faults, we returned to the jeep and headed back to Palm Springs. Although we expected a dangerous adventure, we found beauty and fascination, yet remained safe and comfortable. Our first sedate experience in the desert left us hungry for future risky excursions. Maybe next time we will try a more challenging tour.