JOSHUA TREE and MOJAVE DESERT.

 The next day we headed east towards Palm Springs, shortly after leaving LA we see these windmills, thousands of them. They might provide power without using fossil fuel but they sure pollute the landscape. In short they are ugly. For you Windsor area folks  we feel the same way about the  drive along the 401 and all the windmills there.  We arrived at Palm Springs and got out of the RV to 107* temperature.  We did look around town a bit but the tours are all done in the morning and were over for the day.  I did see a sign to play golf for $5.00 on some of the over 100 golf courses in the area.

 Joshua Tree National park was our next stop.  The tree was named by the Mormons settlers who thought that the tree looked like Joshua holding his hands us in prayer at the battle of the Ameklikes.  I guess they didn't check the bible to well because it was Moses who held his arms in pray while old Josh was on the battlefield.

Even though in was still really hot we did take a  one mile hike into a canyon for these next few pics. 

 Most of the park was fairly flat desert but this canyon was really rocky.  We were told that the native Indians lived in the canyon many years past and  it was a hangout for cattle rustlers in the days of the old west.

 Look like lots of places to hide in these rocks  and there are rattle snakes and poisonous  critters as well.

It was really hazy but the mound you see in the middle of this picture is the San Andreas fault. It is measured moving 2 inches each year with the Pacific crust moving under the North America crust. and when the tension get to it max..........you know the rest.

The Mojave Desert,   miles and miles of this, sometimes with mountains in the distance.  We passed through a small town about 6:30 in the evening and it was graduation night at the local high school.  There were hundreds of people at the ball diamond out side and all the grads in the dress up clothes and caps and gowns  and the temp was 109*  WOW,  tough folks, we were hot in the RV with the AC on high.

The road across the Mojave , dead straight,  we wonder why they even built the road.

Sand, scrubs and heat,   it was still  over 90* at midnight.  On to Las Vegas