The Purple Penguin

Up early again, this time to beat the traffic, and on the road by 6.30. Got out of San Diego easily and got onto Interstate 8 which runs along the border between Mexico and the US. Stopped for breakfast in Descanso (which we keep calling Desperado) in a little place called Descanso Restaurant. Lovely breakfast and an interesting stop.

We then took 86 which runs along the Salton Sea, which we thought would be interesting. Joe had visions of stopping by the shore and watching birds and getting photos. Not to be. Can’t get that close to the shoreline! And there really isn’t much there at all. Looks like it may have been a resort at one time, but that time is long past. There is apparently still good bird watching but we didn’t see where to stop. So we carried on up to Interstate 10, then turned off and into Joshua Tree National Park.

Entered at Cottonwood, which is the Colorado Desert part of the park, so lower lying and hotter than the Mojave section, with much different vegetation and almost no Joshua trees. We stopped and looked at various things as we drove along, it is very different from Death Valley. Much more plant life and looks like more life in general. We headed on to 29 Palms and got a hotel room, then turned back into the park so Joe could get some sunset photos of Joshua trees.

Found a place with some nice trees and Joe took several photos over hours! It got quite cold as it got dark so we then headed out, deciding to drive back to the hotel via Joshua Tree. We thought we had found some really good trees, but as we drove further along we saw how wrong we were. In the park these things grow BIG and the ones we’d stopped at were dinky in comparison. But massive compared to the ones we’d seen in Death Valley! Very impressive and we’re looking forward to a better look tomorrow.

We went out to Keys View for a quick look and a bit of star gazing. Too many cars turning in so we headed back out. Going to Joshua Tree then to 29 Palms was the long way! But not a bad drive. Tomorrow we’ll do it the other way round then head off to Mojave.

Parked at the hotel and walked to a little Mexican place for dinner – we’d been in the car for about 12 hours and were ready for a break!