Meanwhile, somewhere above Palm Springs ...

In dreams, you can fly. In life, you can fly coach. Or, to avoid baggage fees, snack fees and bruised knees, you can ride the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway.

That’s what the people in this video are up to, ascending from palms to pines in a mere 10 minutes. Every fall, when desert temperatures begin to dip into the tolerable range, traffic picks up.

And in winter, the traffic will get even thicker. That’s when you stand a good chance of finding snow at the Mountain Station, high on the slopes of Mt. San Jacinto.

Anyway, the tramway journey takes you from 2,643 feet above sea level (on the valley floor) to 8,516 feet above (on Mt. San Jacinto), slowly rotating as you go. An adult fare is $23.95. Palm Springs is about 100 miles east of Los Angeles City Hall.

“A Minute Away” is a video series in which nothing much happens -- except you see the world, and hear it, and get a minute’s respite from workaday life. (Actually, some are as long as 1:40.) These are casual moments without talking heads or narration -- just natural sound from Machu Picchu, Red Square, the Yucatan, an Alaska float plane or the reading room of the New York Public Library. We add new ones weekly, and we’ve got more than 60 of them now, so if you’d prefer a full hour away …