We left the Park
But before we did I made another trip to Keys View Point and I started early. In fact I was up so early that I got the sunrise on pictures. But then everything went dull. Clouds everywhere and the colors just disappeared. Again I was contemplating whether I should turn back - this time for a different reason, for the SD-card was in the camera alright.

Well, I went on. At about 8:30am I reached Keys View. Got out of the car and almost lost the door in a terrible wind gust. When I climbed the last steps to the top of the view point I had to lean against a ferocious storm. It was like I had no coat on - the wind went straight through me. The haze and the grey clouds all but obscured the view towards Mt. Jacinto. Yet I took a number of shots. I knew I could remove some of the haze with help of my graphic program on my laptop.

From the Keys Viewpoint: Mt Jacinto

But this was no place to dwell on. I waited a few minutes in the car as the sun seemingly tried to break through the grey layer, but it did not improve much.

Returning down the road I stopped in the "Lost Horse Valley" for a couple of more shots. A huge rock formation, called "Cap Rock" incited my curiosity. Looking up at the rock I could see why this name was so approbriate. On top of the rock sat a smaller rock on a slope looking just like a cap.
Down here not a grass straw was moving. I met a young chap who apparently had slept the night in his station wagon. I told him about the storm at Keys View and I think he did not believe me. And I can understand that. It was just not plausible in such a quiet place as we were at.

After returning to the coach, (it was 11:30 by then) we had lunch and packed up. I had a sudden desire to get "home" to our Holtville Hot Springs camp.
We went down Box Canyon, and reached Mecca by the Salton Sea. Following Hwy 111 we stopped at Walmart in Brawley for stocking up on food. After a week with absolutely no shopping, our fridge looked like it had been robbed by some hungry desperados.

 Coming down to Holtville we had to backtrack 11 miles past the turnoff to the BLM area, as some stupid California bureaucrats had ordered the bridge across the All-American Canal closed off, this time with solid concrete barriers. We have to consider how long we are gonna stay here. With the bridge closed we have pretty much lost connection with the I-8, unless we make that 22mile (back+forth) over the cracked up old Hwy 80. It pretty much made all the shelfes in our pantry come down.


But lets not not get too much into that for now. We will evaluate the situation over the next 2 weeks.


We welcome George and Suzie Yates as new followers. You guys are parked in the same spot as we, the Holtville Hot Springs.


Thanks for stopping by!

Is it the Age or something else?
Determined to get more nice pics I was heading out into the park again. Drove the 30-some miles to where it really gets interesting - just to discover that I had left the SD-memory card to the NIKON on the dining table in the rig. 


Should I turn back to retrieve the card, or should I continue without the possibility of taking pictures? I was torn between bad and worse. Was I slipping up lately or what was going on? And it wasn't the first time I had left that card at home.


I decided the mental battle towards going on through the park. If it really turned out nice I could go back tomorrow for the pics.


So I went on. Shortly after having passed the big rocks you saw a pic of the other day, the road descends into a valley.
At the park's main intersection one road leads over to the Twentynine Palms Visitor Center, while the other one heads for the Joshua Tree Visitor Center. I took the one to the Joshua Tree Visitor Center. The road climbs up to Sheep Pass, before it enters another valley. A half mile or so behind the Ryan Campground a road forks off to the Key's View Point. I like grand views and turned the Jeep upwards again. A sign is warning RVs and buses to go onto this narrow road. However, driving up this road which actually has a median and is perfectly paved I could see absolutely no reason why any size of RV would have a problem there.


Well, when I reached the top I realized the parking area wasn't measured out very generously, but I still could have parked our rig up there.
Now the Grand View - to describe it would be futile. But I can tell, that I could see right down onto the San Andreas Fault, I could catch a glance of Palm Springs and beyond the city the looming mighty San Jacinto Mountain. I had a notion of flying across the Coachella Valley. It sure was a grand view, and I hope I will not repeat forgetting to stick that SD-card into the camera ever again. And that's a promise!


And of course, there was a whole lot more than the grand view. 


Two new followers have joined the American-Traveler Journey. Welcome jld52405 and Bob and Jo from http://bobandjotravelblog.blogspot.com/.


Thanks for stopping by!

New followers... 
Over the last days 4 new followers have found it worth while to follow this blog. These are Jeri and Terry from "Wanderin", Toni and Doug from "Palamine", Sassy and Bennie from "Sassy's on 'Da Road", Rick and Kathy Rousseau, and finally Donna K from "Travels in Therapy".  I hope you guys are having fun here, and welcome onboard!


...and the Joshua Tree National Park
After we had said good bye to our new RV-friends, we had a great ride to the Joshua Tree National Park.

We weren't sure about whether it was wise to drive the big rig into the park and whether campgrounds could accommodate the 59ft of rig, but we made it to the visitor center from I-10. 

The info we got re. campgrounds made us turn around and seek a nice spot in the BLM-area just south of the park entrance. The BLM is on both sides of the Cottonwood Spring Rd. and south of I-10.


After setting up we took the car for a drive up into the park.
The stretch from the south entrance to the center of the park is about 30 miles. There are informational turnouts along the way, but the landscape did not offer any spectacular views until we came to Jumbo Rocks. 

Upon close inspection we discovered that the rocks are consisting of a rough sand or a very fine gravel. The very same sand makes up the desert floor. The answer to that is EROSION. The entire landscape is extremely eroded and according to the parks brochures 100 millions of years old.


When reaching Jumbo Rock we were running a bit late. We had left Molly at home and needed to return to the rig.


We put our chairs under a tree and enjoyed a great cup of coffee. With the setting sun I ventured about the area trying to shoot a couple of nice pics. I discovered a huge wash behind a levy. Everything in the wash was bright green and I even found flowers in full bloom. What a beautiful place!


We will probably do some more discovering activity tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Flowers of the Desert