Up at 6:30am (7:30am AZ time) for coffee and cereal breakfast. Jonathan cleaned and scrubbed our windscreen so we'd be ready for the sight seeing at Joshua Tree National Park today! Dumped the sani and filled the water and we were on the road by 8:25am to drive the short distance to Desert Hot Springs to pick up mum and dad at the Aqua Soleil Hotel and Spa. They had a lovely stay there, rooms were simple and modern and clean.
On our way to Joshua Tree National Park we saw loads of wind turbines! Took Hwy 62N through gravelly mountains and canyons up to the visitor centre. Stopped for diesel at Morongo Valley. By 9:30am we were starting to see some of the iconic Joshua Trees along the sides of the road.
By 9:45am we were at the Visitor Centre West Entrance to the park. Hopped out at Keys West Boy Scout Trail for a quick walk, then drove to Skull Rock / Jumbo Rocks for another small hike.
We did the Skull Rock hike that leads over to Jumbo Rock (a campground) and then crossed the road to walk back along the Native Trail to the RV (4km hike overall). Lots of cool bouldering for kids to explore and climb with Jonathan.
Around 2pm we drove further into the park to Split Rock, but the parking area was too busy to pull over so we went back to Hidden Valley and Cap Rock to make lunch.
3:25pm we went to Keys View for a hike. It was getting late in the day for any more hiking so we decided not to do the Hidden View Trail.
By 5pm we left the park and drove to the Best Western just out side the boundaries. I went in with Mum and Dad to see about a room for them. There was a small line up of people waiting and one poor over-whelmed woman at the front desk trying to help everyone and answer phones. When we finally got to the desk, she did have one room available for the night so we booked it for them and the kiddos (two double beds).
We thought we might explore Pioneer Town (an old movie industry set area with a cool restaurant called Pappy & Harriet's) but it was closed already for the evening. We then checked out Las Palmas Mexican restaurant and it looked awesome, but was quite crowded. They were super nice there, but in the end we decided it was perhaps a bit too crowded for our large group. We ended up having a lovely chickpea pasta dinner in the RV in a nearby parking lot!
Drove mum and dad and the kids to the Best Western for their overnight stay, and Jonathan and I then looked up BLM (Bureau of Land Management) lands where we could maybe stay for the night in the desert, but it didn't appear to be anywhere close enough to make it worth while. We ended up a block away down the road at the Visitor Welcome Centre parking lot! Perfecto!
No comments:
Post a Comment