Learning the proper way to cruise the desert

Tuesday 4/21/2015

In keeping with my “learning” theme that I’ve had for this road trip, today’s post is titled “Learning the proper way to cruise the desert”. Now obviously this is not a hard thing to do but I’ll outline the steps anyways:
Step 1: Get in vehicle
Step 2: Start vehicle
Step 3: Drive vehicle in desert in a calm and sedate fashion (but not slow). Elbow must be hung out of window if not entire arm. Good tunes must be playing. Cool sunglasses must be on.

So there ya have it. Pretty easy if you ask me.

Anyways, I packed up camp this morning and headed south through Joshua Tree. I stopped at all of the standard pull-offs along the way but really, a desert is a desert. So eventually I just cruised on south until I hit Cholla Gardens – a spot where the desert transitions very abruptly from Joshua trees to abundant cholla cactuses. And when I say abundant I mean seriously, if there was a tornado here and you were around you would be killed. These things are deadly in that their spines have little hooks in the end that make them impossible to pull out of your skin comfortably. Super pretty though when they are not embedded in your flesh!

Skull Rock! Super cool looking.

Jane and a bunch of fuzzy cholla cactuses

So many cholla!!

A partially dead cholla showing off its skeleton.

Even more deadly cacti!

I like the little fuzzy cholla babies all over the ground. They're like dangerous giant fuzzy caterpillars.

After Cholla Gardens there wasn’t much to see until I reached the south end of the park. However, there was something even more wonderful for a car aficionado – a 30-mile stretch of perfect asphalt. It was perfectly smooth with small turns that were excellently banked and there was no one around for miles. In short, it was a perfect drive. Not the kind of drive where you want to go screaming down it at a million miles an hour, but the kind that provides the ultimate zen experience. There is nothing like the perfect smoothness of fresh pavement after you’ve been on a roughed up road. So I hung out and cruised on down in perfect tranquility, arm hung out the window, sunglasses on, and some good ole Tom Petty in the background. And that’s how you cruise the desert.

Stopped briefly to check out this octotillo - never seen one before (that I can recall)!

Jane and... the desert, I guess.

Eventually that had to end though and the perfect pavement gave way to normal road again. I stopped off at the visitor center and went for a nice 4 mile hike around some oases. I really wanted to do the Lost Palms Oasis hike but unfortunately didn’t have time, so I kind of just went my own way.

Cottonwood Oasis - a lovely place full of giant swaying palms and wildlife and no actual visible water.

Joshua Tree doesn’t really mark its trails very clearly and the desert preserves any footprints that people leave, so it’s hard to figure out where you’re supposed to go. So I went in an approximation of what I thought the trail looked like, then climbed on top of a mountain to see where I was.

Yep, looks like a desert.

Having gotten my bearings using the different oases as markers, I headed back down the mountain and wandered along a wash until I hit the road back to the parking lot. Along the way I saw a bunch of GIANT lizards (seriously, iguana-sized!) and some lovely flowers. A nice peaceful hike overall. I also found some hikers who had gotten lost who were totally overjoyed to see another person. Apparently they hadn’t thought to get to high ground to figure out where they were and had been wandering around for an hour looking for the parking lot. Oops.

Kinda pokey looking.

Mr. Lizard posing for a shot.

More cactus flowers to photograph, of course

This lizard was GIANT!!

How are they all so fat?? What do they eat??

Wandered into this wash to get back to the parking lot.

This flower was just really pleasing for some reason.

Some very non-deserty-looking flowers.

I departed the park early in the afternoon to head to my next destination – Sedona, AZ. I went to this place a decade or more ago when I was a kid and recalled it being absolutely beautiful. Even though I knew I wouldn’t have a lot of time to spend hanging out there this trip, I thought that it would make a good mid-Arizona stop. So I hopped back on the highway and cruised on east.

Blah with some nice cliffs in the distance.

My campground for the night was Lo Lo Mai Springs Campground, which was absolutely gorgeous – right next to the river in a lush corner of the world. It was a nice departure from the harsh brightness of the desert. However, it did remind me about one thing that I forgot existed – mosquitos! It’s so dry where I live in Colorado that I don’t frequently see mosquitos, and of course there aren’t any to be found in the desert. Fortunately I found some bug spray in Jane; unfortunately, I found it after I had been consumed by 10 or 15 mosquitos. Regardless it was quite a nice place to stay.

Tomorrow I’m headed on to Petrified Forest National Park! Kelly signing out.