February 5th 2020

Well once we get the ice out of the humming bird feeder, today is going to be a special day. The Bannon’s are stopping by our little piece of desert to pick us up for a trip to Yuma for lunch with Francine and Gilles, we have not seen them since since last spring in Florida. We had planned a visit in January, but because of unforeseen issues, we were unable to get together before we had to move on. But all systems are a go today.

So the plan was to meet at a place in Yuma called Burgers & Beer, what could possibly be wrong with that, I just happen to like both of those items. But when I got looking at the menu there were so many items that looked really good, I bounced between a bacon wrapped hot dog, a blue cheese burger, but I settled on a shrimp poor boy and I do believe it was an excellent choice. It was great to catch up on the past few months and discover what everyone has planned for the short term as well as the long range plans for next winter. It seems that we are all aimed for different part of the southern states next winter. Again keeping in touch with all these full time travelers is easy with social media but being able visit with everyone keeps becoming more difficult as next winter has people scattered from the Carolinas to Arizona and a number of spots in between. While our winter plans are not set in stone we are still looking at a number of options, in fact it really is too far off for us to be doing anything other just pitching ideas back and forth, because we are ok just boondocking for a winter of living off grid is ok with us.

It is always great getting together with our RV family, and when your friends are from all different areas and travel full time there are always some great stories of places that have been visited, adventures that have been memorable, stories of travel issues either road conditions, new city bypasses, and of course equipment problems, and of course discussing everyone’s travel plans, either short and long term as we try to plan our next opportunity for a rendezvous.

But our day did not end with lunch, as our tour guides took us sight seeing to the sand dunes in Glamis CA and to the bird sanctuary at Cibola AZ, both were new to the Buchanan’s and both will be worthy of revisiting, just a couple more amazing spots out here in the desert.

January 31st 2020

Well it is a crisp Friday morning here in Quartzsite, 41 or 5 degrees at 7 o’clock, I just turned the boiler on to warm the coach. We are excited because we are heading to Joshua Tree today, we are picking up the Bob and Shari in Ehrenberg at 9:00 on our way by, Joshua Tree is a hour and a half west on I-10 over the state line in California. We are expecting the temperature to be 67 or 20 degrees by this afternoon, but could be in the fifties when we arrive, once we cross the state line there is an hour time difference, the gate we are entering opens at 8:30 so well before our arrival. Miss Laurie has her camera ready, I will try to get a shot or two with my phone. We are looking forward to the park and also a visit with Shari and Bob, we last seen them in late November in Phoenix.

Wow is about the best way to describe what we explored today, there where many different things to keep us interested, this is an area in California where two deserts meet so there are many areas very unique and different as we drove through the park we moved through multiple different sections of plant life, rock formations, elevations, and topography. We seen so much more than we expected! We had seen videos of the area done by Less Junk More Journey but it is kind of like the Grand Canyon, photos and videos just can’t capture the beauty of the area and just can’t do it justice. Standing at Keys lookout, seeing the Sultan Sea, overlooking Palm Springs, Indigo, and San Bernardino, in fact on a day when the California smog is less you can see the Mexican border some ninety plus miles away, beyond the Sultan sea. The cactus garden, the Joshua trees, the rock formations, all in different areas, almost as if planted by man.

We stopped for lunch at one of the many picnic spots throughout the park, we got up close to some of the rock formations, this area seemed alive with wild life, there were lots of acorns from some oak trees, which attracted squirrels and birds, the rock formations while looking smooth are very rough to the touch, and the signs of erosion are obvious, there were a variety of cactus as well as a few Joshua trees, it was a welcome stop, and a great lunch provided by the Bannon’s. There are a number of ridges through the park with Keys outlook being 5190 feet close to a mile high, there we snow covered peaks in the distance a few ridges over and there are areas of the park that do get the occasional snow fall, in fact the Joshua Tree like the cooler temperatures that are gained by the altitude. But apparently snow is one of the contributing factors of the trees being knocked over by the weight. The Joshua Tree life can be on the two hundred year range, and depends on a moth for pollution, Miss Laurie is quite concerned because the Ranger told us that the trees are not being regenerated as fast as they are falling from natural causes.

We basically just drove through the park, with a few stops for photos, it is a large park with multiple hiking trails, we just touched on a few of the spots, there are three entrances and we travelled from the South Gate to the North, approximately eighty miles, I can see revisiting Joshua Tree again, and I can see it being the source of a number of adventures.

We finish our road trip by driving through parts of Palm Springs, just to see how the other half of the world live, with beautiful palm lined roads, lots of shopping and restaurants, but what was most amazing was the change in temperature with 27 or 86 degrees in Palm Springs as compared to 18 or 68 at Joshua Tree.

A quick stop at Costco for some more Baileys, for our coffee and we are headed home, we stopped in Ehrenberg for a fish and chip dinner at the River Run bar before saying good night to the Bannon’s and heading off to the desert and Mr. Sam.

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