West Coast USA Day 5

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Rocks,Valleys,Deserts and apple pie

Another early day....... it's killing me! We set out early to miss the traffic and today we're off to Twentynine Palms CA with a few detours on the way. We detour off to Julian, a lovely little town which is known for its famous Apple Pie, we stop for breakfast and the cafe is all decked out like something out of the prairie, it is amazing and of course had to get an Apple Pie. The drive from San Diego to Julian has taken us through some lovely countryside with rolling hills with small forested areas in between, but, we've now left Julian and the surroundings are changing and it starts with a few big boulders here and there and now we're travelling through some of the rockiest, barren country side we have ever seen, Steve keeps saying this is Amazing........ Seriously Steve, once, twice is ok, but 20 times! The roads are winding and not so good for me, but it's well worth it, just to see! We come up a steep grade and once through a cutting at the crescent we are at a look out looking down on the town of Indian Springs which sits in a large valley. Behind us are mountains of rocks, across the valley are mountains of nothingness and left and right of the valley is desert, amazing. We drive down the mountainside into the town of Indian Springs and this appears to be retirement heaven and literal oasis in the middle of what would have been nothingness, everything is new, palm trees line the streets and its such a contrast to 30 minutes ago, incredible.

Steve has mapped out for us to go via the Joshua Tree National Park, so we now leave Indian Springs and the palm trees fade and give way to desert, not a flat desert, but a wave of sand dune looking topography that this long flat uphill incline freeway has been sliced through. We stop at the Paton War Museum, at moment it's 104f outside I tell Steve I'm happy to sit in the car as Tanks and Guns are really not my thing. He's back in around 20 minutes and is very excited because the young man in the museum was talking to him about the Desert tarantulas and rattlesnakes around here, great, why does he have to tell me all about it, now he wants to photograph one and let it run over his hand, the man's mad! Anyway, we travel back down the highway looking for the turnoff to Joshua Tree National Park only to drive up to the gate and find out it closed due to flooding, great!, the GPS is not happy because it keeps trying to make us re-route back to where we came from, by this stage we are telling her to be quiet! We finally arrive at Twentynine Palms and it's a lovely clean Motel, we go into the main street and have the best Ribs, they're delicious! Today's weather ….... bloody Hot!

Accommodation:

Best Western, Garden Inn & suites
29 Palms Highway
Twentynine Palms, California

Thoughts.... Basic and clean, great bed. If you like ribs, The Rib Company up the road cooks a great rack, ask for their sampler plate and don't let the looks of the place deter you.

The drive from San Diego to Twentynine Palms via Julian was reccommended to us for its diversity in changing landscape and it didn't disappoint, during our trip when talking to Americans and mentioning we stayed at Twentynine Palms the usual response was, why? The Journey, that's why :-)

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