26/8/22 Off to another kind of park

 Today was a great day mostly spent driving through the Joshua Tree National Park which is just above Palm Springs.  This will be a pretty photo heavy entry, but it was an amazing experience.  The rock formations are huge and very strange looking, and I’d imagine very popular with rock climbers and people who don’t have dodgy knees and enjoy physical exercise in the sweltering heat.  I did not climb over them, no.

While the actual driving time is probably around two hours, it took me around five hours to get around it because I was stopping so often to take photos.  Around every corner there was an amazing rock formation or stunning view.  I tried to put the camera on the windscreen to video some of the journey but it just fell off in the heat.

Of course the pool is being upgraded over summer, who would want to use it at this time of year?

The hills around Palm Springs are pretty spectacular and leave poor old Te Mata Peak in the dust.

The free hotel breakfast, I’ve had worse but it’s no IHOP.  At the top is my first time having sausage gravy.  It was fine, tasted kind of like a gravy but as a white sauce. I don’t think I need to have it again.

Like coffee, they do orange juice really well here, none of that orange flavoured breakfast drink, this was freshly squeezed tastiness.

Look at all the flavours! Somewhere in the middle is a chocolate milk one. I bet that goes down a treat in the hot summer sun, especially if it tips over in the car.

The cups on the side, second from bottom - that’s the large size.  

They do XL and 2XL, because America. I got the no sugar Dr Pepper because I like not having diabetes.

What I thought was an old Native American building seems to be a wildlife or weather monitoring station.  Why don’t we have zoom eyeballs yet?

Palm Springs in the middle, LA is further back in the haze

There were quiet a few trees that were burned and dead but nothing else around them. 

According to a sign they are the results of lightning strikes. I was nervously eyeing up any overhead clouds from that point on.

There were people camping here! It was 38c with no wind, why would you do this?

Supposedly Skull Rock but I think it would be better named as Homer Skull Rock, you’d know what you’re getting.

The wheels. I still look like someone wresting a bag of potatoes getting in and out of it.  I’m so used to getting in the other side I just can’t get my body to go into mirror mode.

The bushes around the place are creosote bushes and they smell so nice. It was like having a car air freshener that was actually pleasant.

I think this was a dust devil, it was there for ages and had a bunch of little ones around it.

114f, that would be 44c. This is why every time I have a meal I order 57 cold drinks.

Walmart.  Disappointingly I saw far more weirdos in the Hollywood supermarket. 

Not surprising, but disappointing. I had promised my brain weirdos and didn’t see any.

I asked for a local beer, but the waiter didn’t really speak much English so I pointed to the one that I didn’t recognise.  Coors, Bud and Millers can all go to hell.

Pretty much the best burger I’ve ever had. The yellow peppers on the side - not eating them was probably one of the best decisions I’ve made.

Parmesan fries.  Yes, yes they were very good.

Tomorrow I’m driving to Tucson.  There is major road works on the Interstate so I’ve got the choice of going on that, with an hour and half wait, but only taking 5 1/2 hours or going down around the Salton Sea taking 6 1/2 hours but not sitting in a car for 90 minutes in the heat.  Think I’m going to go the long way round.