So we have moved on from Yuma and had a few days at a nice park (Indian Wells RV Resort) in Indio, a part of Palm Springs.
I start this gallery with a semi-political statement. Do you want your environment and scenery to look like this? Mostly from the mid west to the west coast we have seen an increasing number of “environmentally sustainable power sources”. Nice thought but look at the view. Palm Springs was by far the most densely populated area of wind generators we have seen. They were there as a jungle on the flats beside the highway, up the slopes and even along the skyline atop the ridges. (At least the solar farm we drove by a week or two ago wasn’t as intrusive even if it was just as large (in area). It took us 2 minutes 40 seconds at 60mph to pass it.)
Anyway enough of that. One of the highlights of Palm Springs is the cable car from the floor of the Coachella Valley to relatively near the top of San Jacinto Peak. It’s a 2.5 mile journey up to an elevation of 8516 ft in the world’s largest rotating gondola. At the top there are two restaurants, observation decks, natural history museum, two documentary theatres, gift shop and over 50 miles of hiking trails. But it is the scenery we went up for. We made it an afternoon trip so we could have tea up there and see the sunset. We achieved both but notice that those darned wind farms were in the picture yet again. One very interesting point is the two photos showing the San Andreas Fault as seen from the top. I have labelled the fault in a photo in the middle of the gallery.
While in the Palm Springs area we managed to check off another tour bucket list item by visiting the Joshua Tree National Park. It was an entire day loop drive that was full of some spectacular vistas not the least of which was the namesake “Joshua Trees”. These strange desert plants are often mistaken for Yuccas but are a totally different species of plant again. The Park is also loaded with fantastic rock formations and it is the junction of two completely different deserts with the Mojave and Colorado deserts intersecting within the park. The difference in environments is striking with the tree covered Mojave Desert giving way dramatically in a stone’s throw to the shrubby treeless Colorado Desert typology. You can see in the photos how the Joshua trees give way to the Cholla Cactus Garden.
On the way home yet again those pesky wind generators scarred the scenery but the next day we found ourselves moving on to Los Angeles where we were about to meet our daughter Karen and her partner Stu for 4 days of fun in L.A. After several hours in the frantic L.A. traffic we ended our day at Malibu RV Resort on the cliff above the Dan Blocker Beach, Malibu.
The trip to L.A. was nerve racking as there is nothing in this country like Los Angeles traffic. Many Americans have said to me that I was brave to have my first USA driving experience in L.A. Fortunately we made it to our RV Park without as much as a scratch on the car which is more than I can say for our psyche. After settling in for a couple of days Karen & Stu arrived and we collected them from LAX, the second busiest (and in the opinion of many, the worst) airport in the USA.
Once we had them we hit the first of their bucket list items, Santa Monica Pier where tea at Bubba Gump’s was on the cards after a ‘play’ on the pier. Next day it was the long route from Malibu, through Hollywood to get to Olvera St Markets (one of Shane & my favourite places) for lunch at a real Mexican restaurant (El Paso Inn). We had a little more of a look around and a stop at Dick’s Sports Store followed by a visit to Walmart to experience true American culture at large.
Day 3 and we drove almost 3 hours south to San Diego to meet up with a very dear friend of Karen who was a considerable influence on her decision to join the Army. While in SD we naturally (at Karen & Stu’s request) had to tour the USS aircraft Carrier Midway. So again this blog is plastered with more military hardware. Like her sister ship the USS Yorktown (which Shane and I toured last year) the Midway is an impressive piece of weaponry. Speaking of impressive take note of the space age looking Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We spotted this alongside the freeway on this trip.
On their final day we threw the kid’s bags in the back of the pickup (that’s yank for ‘ute’) and took ourselves to Venice Beach before heading into L.A. CBD. We had lunch at Grand Central Markets then visited “The Broad” Museum to see original works by Warhol, Lichtenstein and others. We rode the Angel Flight tram (a short 100 metre uphill cable tram) then took in the atmosphere of “The Last Bookstore”. By 6pm we had to race the kids to LAX to catch their flight back to Australia. We were extremely sad to see them go.
Oh yeah! A big thank you to Karen & Stu for bringing me a bottle of Bundy each from home. I do miss my ‘medicine’ over here. A Bundy a day keeps the high blood sugar away!
The last two photos are of a forgettable RV Park we stayed at for two days after L.A. for some R&R. The scenery was terrific but the park was a sandy, rundown park on the way to our next stop, Death Valley.
Watch the next post for photos from a most spectacular trip through one of the hottest points on earth, Death Valley, California. So that’s it for this post
Cheers for now
Garry and Shane.