California - deserts, planes, lights and rocks

The last few weeks in California have been packed with lots of tourist stuff. 

On our first night at the RV park in Palm Desert we saw a fabulous sunset and many more over the following evenings:

We visited both Palm Springs Air Museum and March Field Air force Museum and saw lots a great planes and helicopters including the SR71 Blackbird, B17 Flying Fortress, B29 Superfortress, B52 Stratofortress, lots of MIGs and far too many others to mentions.  

Last weekend we didn't get to see the giant telescope at Mount Palomar as we had hoped and got within a few miles but the road was closed, possibly due to the snow. We did get a fabulous view of the landscape on the way back down (you can see the winding road and more mountains in the background):

In the afternoon we went to the Indio International Tamale Festival, which as Mark has already commented on, are stuffed steamed dough without the suet – not really to my taste, but one has to try these things. In the evening, we saw the Palm Springs Festival of Lights parade, celebrating “75 years of Like No Place Else”. Some of the floats were great and there were many local dance troupes and marching bands to keep us entertained.

We met a lovely retired couple (Pris and Bill) at Palm Desert, who were so knowledgeable and a real pleasure to spend time with. They were a font of information on where to go and what to visit on our travels. We spent many hours chatting and they recommended our first stop, Lake Cahuilla, to start our ‘dry camping’ – living off our own power and stored water - so we could make sure everything was working as it should before we went too far from civilization. The lake was breathtaking and this was the view from our front window:

And more great sunsets:

The following day we visited the Joshua Tree National Park where the Colorado (eastern half) and Mojave (western half) deserts meet. It covers 794,000 acres and is really diverse. The eastern half of the park is below 3,000 feet and is sun baked, covered in desert hardy plants

and a relatively small area is covered with the jumping Cholla cactus, also called teddy bear cholla

The western half is above 3,000 feet, with stacks of boulders and jumbo rocks and thousands of the wild-armed Joshua tree for as far as the eye can see, which the park is named after:

One of the highest places in the park, Keys View, is at 5,185 feet and the view of the valley below is stunning. In front of the mountain range (Santa Rosa Mountains), there’s a long dark patch which is the San Andreas Fault.

The time has come to leave California and head east into the unknown of Arizona…