Episode 9: Phoenix to Joshua Tree
We left Phoenix in the morning. The grandparents live in Sun City, which is a retirement community in the west suburbs. When it was originally built in the 1960s it was detached, out in desert. Now it's at the western edges of Phoenix's sprawl. The areas around still have some agriculture. We saw roses, grapes, cotton, kale. There's a good chance, if we were to go back in 2 or 3 years, they will all be covered with houses.
We pulled off the interstate to get gas right before we got into California at Quartzsite, Arizona. Little did we know we were exiting onto another planet. Dune buggies, bushy beards, and woodie-paneled Escorts. Missy was titillated to see hundreds and hundreds of RVs and vans setting up flea market-style all over the town. Apparently we had arrived right at the beginning of an annual rock hunting show/sale/circus. So we got out and walked around some of the booths. Mostly rocks, jewelry, and wood. We got a couple cheap rings and some cool rocks. Missy, who is an Aries and has some sort of artist's fetish for animal bones, was eyeing a small ram skull. Jen convinced here that she had to buy it, since she was unlikely to find anything like it in Ohio and because she thought it would make an excellent travel decoration in the window of the car. If there was only a way we could attach it to the hood....
After our exploration of flea market culture in Quartzsite, we headed into California. We had to pass through an agriculture inspection point, which brought up the question of what to say about the 30 grapefruit and numerous oranges and lemons Jen's grandpa had given us from their backyard tree before we left.
Shortly before dark we pulled into the south entrance of Joshua Tree National Park. The park marks the meeting point of low desert and high desert. The southern part that we were in had the typical low desert landscape, lots of scrub and cacti. We set up the tent in the campground, made a fire, had dinner - a seemingly innocent camping experience. Until we went to bed. Then came the wind. We were welcomed to California by the Santa Ana winds. It had been fairly windy on the interstate coming to the park and there were wind advisory signs. We found out the next day that they had actually closed some of the interstates east of LA (where we were) because semis were flipping over. So... imagine being in a tent in these conditions! By about 2:30 in the morning the wind had ripped the tent stakes up and our bodies were the only thing preventing the tent from blowing into a canyon. Missy tried valiantly to restake it, but we finally decided it wasn't worth it. So Jen scurried back and forth to the car, putting our gear away while Missy anchored the tent, then we took the tent down and slept in the car the rest of the night. We saw some of the RV campers in the campground the next morning and they were amazed we had stayed in the tent that long. This being Missy's second night ever of camping, she is somewhat disillusioned. Jen tried to explain that one is not usually blown off the side of a mountain when camping.
The next morning, then we headed up the forty mile road that runs through the park to the high desert side. We stopped at a nature trail that went through a huge field of teddy bear cholla cacti. As we were walking through, a huge jackrabbit hopped by.
The first thing we encountered as we entered the high desert was fields of huge boulders, some piled up into giant hills. They were very climable, so we spent some time playing on those. As we took off through the desert toward some of the bigger piles, we tried to ignore the various holes in the ground that at some time contained rattlesnakes!
As we drove farther north we started to see the gnarly joshua trees all over the place.
We finished the day with two hikes. One up Lost Horse Mountain, which has the remains of a gold mine at the top. This was a great hike with great views at the top. Not quite as high as Guadalupe Peak in Texas, and fewer "scenery comtemplation" breaks (i.e. oxygen sucking breaks).
We squeezed in one more 1 mile loop hike as the sun was setting through an area called Hidden Valley. The trail wound through more huge piles of boulders and canyons. The area was supposedly used by cattle rustlers to hide stolen cattle. Lots of great photo opportunities as the sun set. There were also a lot of rock climbers still climbing.
Headed out of the park with a few stops for The Artist to take some joshua tree silhoutte photos in the setting sun with her real camera. And the Non-Artist got a few lucky shots with the digital camera, too. We ate dinner at a local Mexican dive. We finally got Mexican after a week in the Southwest!