Thursday, 10/6 - Sequoia National Park and Joshua Tree National Park

Enroute to Twentynine Palms/Joshua Tree

We left Kings Canyon (John Muir Lodge) and headed down the way we came and eventually dropped into the agriculture area east of Fresno.   They were growing the same stuff we saw as we drove in, nuts (pistachios and almonds, we think), grapes, and citrus (we saw a packing/processing plant for those small oranges/tangerines - Halos).

We got to Bakersfield and headed east over the mountains at Tehachapi Pass (lots of windmills at the pass), and into the Mojave Desert.  We passed the town of Mojave, where they seemed to have an "Aircraft Graveyard" - a couple hundred jets parked out on the desert - and Edwards Air Force Base. The base seemed to take up a huge amount of space - we saw signs to it, but never actually saw any buildings.

We passed the town of Boron, which if I remember correctly from our tour of Death Valley, is now the main miner/producer of Borax.

We eventually made it to Barstow where we had lunch at a Jersey Mike's. The exit where we stopped was the ultimate "interchange city" with every fast food restaurant you can imagine, probably 20 hotels, and an outlet mall. I did see my first Rivian truck and it was actually at a Rivian charging station.  It was smaller than I imagined.

Then we headed south and east toward Joshua Tree, again through mostly desert scrub.  We got to the hotel (another Holiday Inn Express that was also under construction (the pool was closed due to maintenance) and I was so fried, that we just drove around and looked for a pizza joint.

We found one that had salads to go with our pizza and had a nice dinner.

I have to confess that the picture below of a Joshua Tree is not one of ours.  Virg got it in a fund raising letter while we were gone.




Link to next post:  10/7 - Joshua Tree National Park

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