A slow morning given last night's over indulgence, but by 9am, we were on the road to Joshua Tree National Park which is only a few miles from our motel, Safari Inn.
Hiking some shorter trails was on the cards, as well as checking out the mighty Joshua Trees.
Here is Hans looking for the trees...
Yep, Hans found a few Joshua Trees.
Di on the trail for our first hike, a 2 mile / 3.2 km loop called Split Rock. Mind you, many rocks are split here, so it was not that obvious which one it was referred to, but we think that we got it.
A little bit of Australia on a Mojave cactus. We brought some kangaroos and koalas with us to give away as presents. Yes, we did remove some spines from this one so it was not a "surprise" present.
The second hike was flat and sandy for most of the way, in a river bed, before heading down to a dry spot with dry willow trees. The broader landscape was interesting, but the flat hike and the destination were a bit so so. Length of hike was just short of 12km.
On the path Di met some national park volunteers who showed her their favourite hike on a detailed map, the North View Trail. About 12km in a loop but not advertised by the visitors centre. They said it was well marked so we decided to try it tomorrow. We then left the National Park for some housekeeping duties.
We drove to Yucca Valley up the road from Josua Tree to go food shopping at Food 4 Less. As we now have a customer card for Ralph's which is part of the same concern as F4L, we now get a discount while shopping there. This on top of already low prices, so we ended up with lots of food and some alcohol for less than $50. Great value.
After offloading the goodies at the motel, we booked an additional 2 nights here as Joshua Tree National Park is truly stunning so now we check out by Wednesday.
Then a trip to the local laundromat for some washing.Those places are frequented with "interesting" characters including the bloke who worked there. After a while, 2 young dudes came in with sleeping bags to wash and who knows what, then failed somehow to load the correct number of coins and started a conversation that gave Dumb and Dumber a run for their money (we could not help overhearing it). We couldn't wait to leave.
Dinner was in the room utilizing the microwave oven. Menu was Di's chicken and mushroom sludge (aka risotto), a secret recipe and very tasty.
An early night beckons as we prepare for our tougher hike tomorrow.
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