Joshua Tree & Sequoia NP 4-5-21

On our first day, we decided to visit Joshua Tree National Park, where the Mojave and Sonoran deserts meet. The landscape is beautiful! Boo stayed home in the trailer because she was not allowed on the trails and it was too hot to leave her in the truck.

Looking down on the valley. Palm Springs is visible to the upper right. Our trailer is down there.

We were thirsty after hiking around the park so stopped for a beverage and an appetizer, which ended up being our supper, mini corn dogs and jalapeno caps.

The next day we headed to Slab City. Here is a short video of Dillon Road on the way.

Just before reaching Slab City, we stopped for lunch at Buckshot Diner and Deli, recommended by Jenna Peterson. People there were very friendly and we ran into 3 other people from Minnesota.

Slab City is an unincorporated “village” of hippie type boon dockers. They are very creative!. However, I was disappointed at the amount of trash scattered all over.

We also drove past Salton Sea. It is a large body of salt water, 35 miles long, created when the Colorado River breached an irrigation canal under construction in 1905. It is very toxic and dangerous for swimming, boating and fishing, although fish do survive in it. The water is hard to see through the haze.

Beautiful Southern California Sunset.

Below is a picture showing a wind farm marring the scenery. It is too bad they didn’t use solar panels to generate electricity.

Sparkling Waters park has beautiful gardens.

On Friday, we went to Palm Springs to take a driving tour past celebrity homes. There were 62 homes on the list. Although we probably drove past many, we only took pictures of a few.

Getting here from the RV park took a long time (1 1/2 hours to drive 12 miles). At the time we didn’t know why there was so much traffic. We later learned there was an officer involved shooting that shut down I10 for most of the day. We did see how arrogant California drivers are when they want to get ahead of other cars.

Below is the tour of celebrity homes.

Before heading back to the campground, we stopped for a beer in downtown Palm Springs.

On Saturday, we headed to the Coachella Valley Preserve with niece Jenna who drove over from LA to visit us. We started our day with lunch at a local tavern. The food was great and we loved the bar.

After lunch, we drove to the Coachella Valley Preserve to hike around the San Andreas Fault.

I developed blisters on my feet so returned to the pickup while Jenna and Dave continued hiking but it was a neat location. We saw two coyotes, pretty close to us, as we walked. The palm trees along the fault survive because of water forced to the surface by the fault.

We finished the day with a beer and refreshment at La Quinta Brewery. The snack was a delicious date flatbread with arugula.

Dave took a few pictures before we left Desert Hot Springs. Below is our last sunset here and an early morning visitor to the pool.

Monday morning, April 12 found us heading out for Kernville, California. We continued to see Joshua Trees along the way. We found an empty lot, advertised for free parking for big rigs and stopped for lunch.

We continued on to our park called Camp Kernville. What a neat little park but very tight. We couldn’t even put our wardrobe slide out all the way. The park is beside the Kern River.

On Tuesday, we headed for Sequoia National Park, about 3 hours away. We drove lots of narrow winding roads and passed pasture land and beef cattle. These gave way to fruit orchards. Many of the ranchers keep bees also and we hit swarms of them. They were full of honey and left quite a mess on the truck.

Sequoia is a beautiful park with much more to offer than just giant sequoias. We ate lunch on a pull out area overlooking the Kaweah River. Boo enjoyed it too!

We continued to climb and wind, seeing many beautiful sites. When we got to the Giant Forest Grove and took our picture by the Sentinal Tree.

Further on, we parked and walked 1/2 mile to the General Sherman tree. This is listed as the largest tree in the world at 275 feet tall and 36 feet in diameter. There are taller trees in the world but because of the thick trunk that maintains its girth most of the way to the top, this tree has the most lumber of any tree, which is why it is listed as the largest tree in the world. We were at 7,000 feet and had to hike 212 feet down to the tree. That means it was 212 feet uphill to return to the truck.

We continued to drive through the park. We had hoped to also drive through Kings Canyon National Park but it was already after 3:00 and GPS said we wouldn’t get back to the park until after 7 PM. We drove most of the same roads that we had taken in the morning. I was getting pretty tired of winding roads by then and think Dave agreed with me. I was very happy to get off those roads just before dusk because I did not want to be on them in the dark.

For our last day in Kernville, we drove about 10 miles to Silver City Ghost Town. It was touted as an actual haunted place but I think that was a bit hokie, with pale manequins placed strategically.