Joshua Tree National Park

12 March 2018

Today I left the lovely Alarcon family and Rancho Santa Margarita and I drove 460 km almost 290 miles to my next stop. I drove part of this road on the i10 with Dion three years ago and the second time around the scenery was just as captivating.

The terrain changes from grassy mountains, to rock studded hills, to boulders, snow topped mountains, and many wind turbines.

My first stop was at the Joshua Tree National Park which is located between the Colorado and Mojave Deserts.

I spent two (2) hours walking and driving around Hidden Valley

Barker Dam

Skull Rock

and stopped several times to take photos of the rock formations.

The photos just do not do it justice. I haven’t been to Uluru but everyone says the same thing, that you have to be there to really feel the beauty.

There were many people rock climbing and bouldering as this sport is welcome here. Can you see the person on the rock face below? Not abseiling!!

Today I drove through Arizona, California, Nevada and now I am staying in an air bnb in Arizona.

Something I got very excited about today was I drove on Route 66 three (3) times. You can’t drive the whole road because it has been closed off in spots but I will try as many sections as possible on this trip.

I stopped at this gas station “Roys” as it reminded me of those sometimes creepy road stops in movies. It was a little creepy but the man who ran the stop was lovely. He told me he served in the South Pacific with Aussies so was very welcoming.

The photo above is Clark Gable and the story is that he dined there many years ago. Richard Gere also worked at this diner on Route 66 when he was young.

I stopped and refuelled at the second Route 66 gas station

I recently read a pschological thriller called Dead Stop which covers the dangers of railway crossings in the USA as many do not have boom gates or flashing lights.

This crossing had a train waiting while one was passing and I loved the colours of the carriages against the mountain (you will need to zoom in) This crossing did have flashing lights

At one stage while driving from Joshua Tree to Needles (a 2 hour drive) I did have 10 minutes of slight panic as I forgot to download an offline map of where I was going and lost my GPS totally. I was on this pretty remote road which is just desert, straight with occasional signs of life with houses which look abandoned homes and in a worse than some of the poor peoples homes in Brasil. Petrol was getting low and I knew I had enough to the next petrol station for 150 km (100 miles) but not if I had to turn back because I was going the wrong way. I really believe I have an angel who looks after me because just as I was starting to worry, up ahead was a San Bernadino County officer in his pick up truck, on the side of the road and I stopped and asked him “am I going the right way?” that shows how worried I was as he had to say “where are you going?”. Luckily I was going the right way and had plenty of fuel.

When I arrived at my air bnb in Bullhead City Arizona, my hosts told me about the casinos in Laughlin Nevada 20 minutes away. I went there to check the music and I enjoyed a listen to some country and western. I learned that the Las Vegas strip is 1.5 hours from the Laughlin Nevada casino strip and Laughlin is situated on the Colorado River.

You know you are in an NRA US state with these signs.