Monday September 30

A good night's sleep in Palm Springs after yesterday's trip. We decided to relocate to Palm Desert for the next two nights and made a reservation at the Marriott Courtyard. The plan was to make a loop through Joshua Tree National Park by entering the West Entrance at the town of Joshua Tree, do some hikes and drive through the park and exit at the south gate at Hwy 10. Little did we know this was going to be a 160 mile trip! A lot bigger park than we thought.

Our first stop was at the West Entrance Ranger Station where we found out that one of the trails we had chosen was closed due to a washout.

We decided to start off with the 49 Palms hike, about 4 miles but a good climb up and down both ways to the destination of this little oasis. Some great views from the trail.

Temperatures were around 90F and required a lot of hydration. The oasis was interesting with a little pool of water that apparently attracts the desert critters at night.

We saw some critters during our hike. We were always surrounded by a bunch of very little and hard to photograph butterflies.

Many small lizards...

A Chuckwalla...

Some of the desert flora and fauna...

We returned to the car and drove to the Hidden Valley which had a trail that winds through a box canyon formed by massive boulders. This was a hideout for cattle rustlers' in the late 1800's.

Some interesting landscape.

From here we drove to the Barker Dam, build around 1900 to hold water for mining and cattle.

We hiked the trail to the dam and found a few interesting critters along the way.

A Gopher Snake...

Another speckled lizard...

There were rocks with hieroglyphs...

The day was wearing on and we realized we had a fairly long drive to Palm Desert. We did one detour to Keys View, elevation 5185 ft which provided a hazy view of the valley containing Palm Springs and Palm Desert. You could also sort of see the San Andreas Fault in the foreground.

From here we had to cruise through the park to get to the hotel by 6:30 pm.

Did we mention that since Paso Robles we now have a new ride???

Stopped for a cool photo of a Ocotillo Cactus.

Got checked in and had time for a trip to the whirlpool and swimming pool before supper. Still over 90F.

Sunday September 29

After waking up early every day due to some sort of critter or fog signal, the one day we want to get an early start, we sleep in till 8:00. Must be the thin air at 7000 ft.

We started our tour of Sequoia National Park.

Our first stop was for a quick view of the Redwood Grove of giant sequoias. The world's largest  grove of Sequois in the park (the grove is in the foreground of this photo).

From there it was a quick stop for a one mile hike to see the Sherman Tree.

Same bear warning we saw yesterday.

This was a well travelled paved path to the giant tree but half way to the tree, there he was on the path!

Didn't seem to be too bothered by the humans and quietly lumbered his way into the woods.

Walking quickly, we had a look at the largest living thing in the world, The Sherman Tree.

We climbed back up the hill to the car and headed to Moro Rock (not Morro Rock).

This proved to be the big test for the acrophobic (Chris). A steep 1/4 mile climb up the spine of a huge granite dome to the 6725 ft elevation.

A little coaxing and she made it to the top.

Some great panoramas.

The road through the park. Lucky to average 25 mph.

A view looking up at Moro Rock from down there..

After the climb, we did a 3 mile hike on the Crescent Meadow Trail.

We passed by the Tharp Log, the original tree house!

Now it was time to leave the park and move on to Palm Springs. The drive out of the park took a while due to the twisting roads until we got to Visalia CA. From here to Bakersfield, nothing but huge market gardening and fruit farms. Luckily it was Sunday and we managed to negotiate the freeways of the LA area without traffic jams although it was still quite busy.

We got to Palm Springs CA at around 8:00 pm and checked into a Marriott Courtyard with an in house bistro and good internet connection which allowed me to update the past few days activities.