Joshua Tree

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Normally I look forward to the free "all you can eat" breakfast in hotels, but there was absolutely nothing to look forward to for our 5th breakfast at The Holiday Inn Express. The only remotely healthy choice was Raisen Bran (already with sugar) and scrambled powdered egg on toast. Even the orange "juice" was cordial. Uggh! Not that there was much else to choose from - the fried bacon and iced pastries particular standouts - so it was the _same_ breakfast every day. Well, almost, I did have a cold boiled egg once or twice.

Leaving LA was a bit of an ordeal, with the merging, branching and criss-crossing freeways still confusing even with a GPS. But eventually we cleared the city limits onto country roads and settled back for a much more relaxed drive than navigating LA traffic. Destination - Joshua Tree National Park - about 2 1/2 hours.

It's not long before the fact that you're in a Californian desert becomes a lot more apparent than when you're strolling down Hollywood Blvd. Long, straight - and I mean, straight - highways ran past, well, not a lot really, except perhaps the occasional wind farm.

We arrived in Joshua Tree around lunchtime, finding the hotel right on the highway without any problem. We checked in and dumped our bags before going in search of lunch, which we found a few hundred metres - oops feet - down the highway. But first, filling up on "gas". Discovered you pre-pay - a specific amount - before filling the car. If you pay too much, the difference is credited back onto your card I'm told.

A quick stop at the Joshua Tree National Park visitor centre, another few hundred feet away, and into the park. First stop - Barker Dam. It's a 2.5 mile loop in what I would guess was 35 degree (C) heat. But it's a dry heat, so you don't actually sweat all that much. Barker Dam is not much more than a puddle these days - but it's the scenery that you go for. Walking back - and this is something I remember vividly from my last visit 10 years ago - it looks like you're on an alien planet! Surrounded by Joshua Trees and desert scrub, sand and rocks beneath your feet with rocky hills surrounding you in every direction, the effect is surreal. If they didn't use this on the original Star Trek series, they should've!

Next walk - Hidden Valley. The same, but different. This is a 2 mile loop inside a ring of rocks, but even in the valley the scenery changes from side to side and end to end.

There's a short drive up to Keys View - overlooking a massive valley that runs from LA on the coast through Joshua Tree and further eastward - encompassing the famous Palm Springs golf resort. A perfect wind tunnel through the mountains to the north and south - carrying the smog from LA all the way through!!! It was terrible! You could barely make out the mountain tops on the other side. What you could see, however, was breathtaking. The scale of it was hard to comprehend. And the San Andreas fault line was clearly visible on the valley floor, with one side visibly higher than the other. We stayed for at least 15 mins doing nothing but admiring the view.

The sun was getting lower now, so we figured we'd get one more short walk in. We chose Skull Rock, whose trail started in the carpark of the camping grounds. After some confusion over where to find the start, we headed off with our water diminishing. It seemed much farther than we'd thought, but we eventually found it. After a few photos, we headed back to the car, getting lost once as the trail is sometimes hard to make out. Not that we were in much danger - the trail more-or-less followed the highway, it being never more than a few tens of metres away.

As the sun started to set, we headed out of the park and back down the 29 Palms Hwy. We'd decided that it was pizza tonight - from an Indian Restaurant no less - and it was quite good. We watched a bit of TV and after an afternoon of hiking in the heat, hit the sack.

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