The winds had eased during the early morning hours. The world looks quite different in daylight as we were surrounded by the Mojave desert with brown eroded foot hills in the distance.
Our first stop was Peggy Sue’s 50’s Diner in Yermo CA, a very popular truck stop and Harvest Host member. It is near Yermo Depot, a huge Marines logistics base with parking lots filled with APC’s and heavy transport vehicles.
Peggy Sue’s 50’s diner was filled with autograph photos, movie posters and other 50’s memorabilia. Despite the 50’s theme, the music was predominantly from the 60’s. The decor and atmosphere were excellent, but the service was just adequate and the food, while generous in portions, was pretty uninspired roadside diner fare. We judge other diners against our gold standard- the Totem Diner in Everett.
We filled up in Yermo with 5.696gal @$6.159/gal with 17147 miles on the odometer (9.8mpg).
We drove to the visitor center for Joshua Tree National Park in the town of Joshua Tree, situated at the north west corner of the park. The visitor center was swamped with traffic and people. We were lucky to get a parking space in the lot. We then drove up to the park entrance where we were greeted with a half mile long line of traffic. It took a half hour to get up to the gate where we were able to bypass some of the line with Janet’s Senior Parks pass. We were in the park at 11:30am.
Our first stop was Quail Springs where we got our first close look at some Joshua Trees and eroded monzogranite monoliths in a picnic area. We were fortunate to be in the park when the Joshua Trees are in blossom, as well as many other cacti and wildflowers.
Rock climbers come from all over to climb on the monzogranite monoliths which feature cracks and splits that allow climbers to use a variety of techniques to ascend the rock faces. It seems many of the park’s sites are named after climbing face features such as Hemingway, Oyster Bar and Hall of Horrors.
Many of the larger extrusions of the monzogranite appear to dot the valley like Flintstone houses, and many have shapes that evoke trolls, gnomes, or even the rock monster from Galaxy Quest.
We hiked through Hidden Valley, which was a bowl like feature that harbored a lot of bunch grass. A rancher discovered it and then blasted an entrance into the bowl so that his cattle could graze it. Now it forms a beautiful Joshua Tree botanical garden with natural rock sculptures creating a natural amphitheater. We’re not sure what any of this has to do with salad dressing though.
We did several small loop trails and most featured educational signage on flora, fauna and geographical features. We drove the RV to Keys View, which looks over the Indio hills and into Coachella Valley in the distance. This was despite “No vehicles over 25 feet” signs. We had no trouble negotiating the road or parking lots in our RV with the external cargo rack on the back.
The most crowded area was a photo op spot called Skull Rock, which happens to be a bit of the monzogranite that looks vaguely like a skull. This appears to be a mandatory LA area instagram spot.
As we headed towards the southeastern exit, there is a transition from the Mojave desert to the Colorado desert, each with its own unique flora and fauna. The transition zone features flora and fauna from both deserts. One of the most notable features was a huge area of Cholla cacti called the Cholla Cactus Garden where there are Cholla cacti as far as the eye can see. Just beyond that is an area featuring Ocotillo trees where we saw a hummingbird feeding on the nectar heels in the tree’s red blooms.
Overall, we enjoyed the Joshua Tree National Park more than Death Valley. Even though we had gotten a late start on our second day in Death Valley due to the emergency RV repairs caused by the Haboob, everything in Death Valley is so far apart, so there is a long drive between every site. Joshua Tree National Park seems much easier to do as a day trip. It was approaching 6pm as we exited the park near the Cottonwood Visitor Center and Bajada Nature Trail.
We set up for the night at a Harvest Host site called Chiriaco Summit, a truck stop run by the Chiriaco family featuring a Chevron station, diner, Foster Freeze franchise (like Dairy Queen), post office, visitor center, mobile home park, and a George S. Patton Museum, featuring a collection of tanks and other military hardware. The Harvest Host site is a dry camp site behind the museum with about 20 leveled sites in the desert with fire rings and tent sites. It was just a few minutes east of the park exit. We filled up with 12.273 gal of diesel at $6.59/gal. The odometer read 17319 miles (14mpg).
We had chili cheese dogs for dinner. We ran the generator to toast hot dog buns using the convection setting in the microwave/convection oven. The hour meter read 18.7hrs on the generator when it was shut down. Heated up the hot dogs from frozen on the LP cooktop with some water, then drained and added chili to heat up for serving.
The temperature was in the low 70’s as the sun set. The campsite was far enough from the freeway that the sounds of traffic were distant, and unlike last night, the wind wasn’t rocking the RV or flapping the slide cover awning. That was a nice change.
