Tuna
Friday 26 April 2024
We have learnt that getting to the big National Parks early is a good thing, as they get busy and then parking is a rarity. We booked place for last night was in the small town of Joshua Tree, only a few miles from the popular west entrance to Joshua Tree National Park. We were on the road before 9am and enjoyed the first couple of stops nearly to ourselves and at the entrance it said that the air quality was good and the fire danger was low. This park is where the Mojave and Colorado Deserts meet and it makes for stunning and varied vistas. We started out in the Mojave Desert side and there were Joshua trees everywhere, along with stunning rock formations. We stopped just about everywhere we could, but avoid a couple of stops as they were already busy. We really wanted to be able to find some quiet time alone, which we did in a couple of spots.
We headed out to Keys View, which I thought considering the name may have a nice view. Oh wow, did it have a good view. It was up on the ridge looking south out of the park and over the Coachella Velley and the cities of Indio, Cathedral City and Palm Springs and we could see a huge collection of wind turbines. It took as moment, but we realised that in the background there were massive mountains, with a few snow-capped peaks. It gave the illusion that they weren’t there, as they were just covered by haze. It did seem to clear up a little whilst we were there and more of the mountain range was visible.
Back on the road, it was more amazing views.
We did make a quick stop at Skull Rock, even through the parking was nearly full. I wandered around for 5 minutes trying to find what/were Skull Rock was. There were people everywhere, climbing over and up the rock, taking posing photos and generally stomping on everything. I am still not sure which rock was actually Skull Rock, but took a couple of photos in the hope that one of them might be the right rock.
After here the vegetation and rock formations started to change.
We then went around a bend or over a hill, I can’t remember, and suddenly there were these very different and weird cactus plants. At our next stop we worked out they were Cholla Cactuses and rather spikey.
From here were headed down into the wide valley and the vegetation kept changing and it morphed from Majove to Colorado Desert.
A quick stop at the south entrance to swap drivers and we were done in Joshua Tree National Park, it was around 60 miles and 3 hrs. Back onto the I-10, I knew what to expect as I had experienced it when we left Phoenix. It was going to be a bit windy, lots of truck going either slow (60mph) or fast (75-80mph) and lots of cars/pickups all going 80+ mph. I wasn’t disappointed, as that was exactly what it was like as soon as I merged on. The only difference was the wind was bit stronger, by ‘a bit’ I mean ‘lots’ stronger. We passed through the town of Indio and the winds were stirred up a good head wind dust/sand storm, visibility dropped but no one slowed down except when it was a full on head wind and that was generally only to about 70mph. I have no idea how strong the wind was, but it pushed our sleek and aerodynamic Honda Pilot brick around and most of the time was spent making sure I didn’t get pushed out of my lane (on the four lane interstate) by the wind and keeping an eye on the trucks who were having a much harder time staying in their own lane.
I thought it might ease up after a few miles, but it didn’t. We couldn’t see the mountain ranges because they were hiding behind the clouds of dust. Why would anyone want to live here?! We came across the massive wind turbines that we had seen from Keys Views in the NP. They were everywhere. The Albatross took some photos of them, but was hampered by the sudden twitching of a wind gust moving the might Pilot.
One hour, that was all that I drove for! However, I was extremely happy when we turned off the I-10 and started heading a bit south, toward San Diego and we could stop have lunch and change drivers. Oh, and it started to rain. What the??
The next hour was really easy in comparison but still required lots of concentration. There was no wind, but lots of traffic lights, lots shit drivers who randomly brake hard for no reason and occasional light rain showers.
This road took us to the I-15, which was another hell hole of frantic, aggressive driving. There are 7 lanes, but still everyone had to dive, weave and undertake. However, we were glad we weren’t heading north, that was either stopped or crawling for the next 30 mins we drove south. Not sure is it was standard mid afternoon traffic flow or mid Friday afternoon traffic. Might try to avoid it when we head north in 5 days.
Finally, into out nice one bedroom apartment in San Diego and have had a beer and now wine. I think we might both sleep really well tonight.
