Day 3 – 13 /8/16 To the Joshua Tree NP – a weekend away
It was so hot last night, it was very difficult to sleep,
especially with two feline “associates” who like to keep you company.
Consequently it was well into this morning when I finally went to sleep.
Woke up at 6:30 and we all had to start moving to get to our
various destinations. Oscar was off to work. Troy to school. We were took Churro
to the minders, on our way to the Joshua Tree National Park - a long, but
wonderful drive.
On the way Susan took us via the scenic route, so we went
via Palmdale along the Pear Blossom Highway through incredibly dry countryside.
While the air quality in LA had been poor- due to a long hot spell, lack of
rain/ wind and bush fires, the area around San Bernadino was even worse. Our
first stop was Morongo for petrol. It has a major casino and even slot machines
in the petrol station and Indian names in the place names, clues which indicated
that it was a reservation. It also has two enormous life size dinosaurs just
beyond the town, which featured in the Pee Wee Hermans movie. As we were taking
photos Susan noticed that both Teagan and I were dressed in exactly the same
colours!
We continued the drive past the huge wind turbines and
beautiful sparse mountain ranges on both sides of the 111 Highway, through the affluent
desert cities of Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert,
Coachella, then back on the huge loop on Highway 10 to Indio along the
Coachella Valley to Desert Hot Springs, the Morongo Valley, Pioneertown, to the
Yucca Valley and Joshua Tree.
On the way, we took our time to look through several of the
towns including Palm Springs, which had some very impressive architecture:
including houses owned by Elvis and many other famous people. Our lunch stop
was at the famous Harriet and Pappy’s Palace in Pioneertown. Delicious lunch, followed
by a walk in the 105 F (40 C) sun through the small Pioneertown. A place of
numerous movies and TV series from 1946 through to the late 50’s. Back in the
car with the air-con blasting, through the Yucca Valley with “interesting”
clouds building on the horizon.
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| At Pioneer town |
After a few wrong turns, we found our AirBnB home for the
weekend- “Atomic Trailer Ranch”. What a delight. Great setup designed to be
sort of 1950’s. Dumped our bags and got back in the car to drive up the hill to
the Joshua Tree National Park because we could see lightning in that area. As
we drove through the Park, rain fell out of the sky in buckets, with the
occasional flash of lightning. The scenery was amazing for a rock hound like
me. Unfortunately with the heavy rain it was difficult to get a photo without
getting saturated and the lightning negated the use of an umbrella. As the rain
eased, we left the park and returned to base for a brief stop, before heading
off to the shops for dinner and supplies.
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| Rain falling in the Joshua Tree NP |
Dinner at Panda Express- great fried rice and broccoli beef,
terrible green tea. Completed our shopping at an enormous Walmart and returned
home to unpack supplies and have a cuppa. I uploaded my photos and deleted/
fixed them, before going outside to check on the shooting stars, due to the Perseid
meteor shower of 2016. (shooting stars). Yes we saw some, but apparently the
best viewing time was last night. Susan saw the most impressive, but it was lovely
standing out there in the darkness watching the stars.
Oscar and Troy arrived at 10:30. The family shared stories,
while I typed up today’s news. Then we went outside to do more sky watching,
until a very late before going to bed. Eventually I went to sleep to wake again
a few hours later- jet lag and heat.
As you will note- no WIFI/ internet up here. But it is just
lovely in its “serenity”.
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