Joshua Tree National Park

The park has three things:
1) Joshua Trees,
2) Large piles of car sized rocks,
3) Incredible view of high desert nothingness.

This picture is from a mile high above Palm Spring to the right, Indio in the center, and the Salton Sea to the far left. Our campground is on the far left near the Sea. The campground is 168 feet below sea level. Only 100 feet higher than Death Valley. The San Andreas Fault is at the base of the hill below us.

Salvation Mountain in Slab City

In 1984 Leonard Knight came to Slab City and started building Salvation Mountain.
Over the next 28 years he created this Folk Art Monument with a simple message that "God is Love".

He built it with hay bails, tree limbs, adobe mud, and junk. Then he painted his message in all the bright colors of the rainbow.

I'll let the following pictures tell his story.
(I hope your viewing this on a computer screen not on a small phone screen)

Leonard died last year. Chances are his creation will not live forever either. The brutal desert will reclaim the space it lent to Leonard for his message.

I hope you enjoyed my trip to Salvation Mountain. I did!

California

It hard to believe, but we made it all the way to California. We are just south of Palm Springs in Thermal, CA. And it is living up to its name. January 25th and it will reach 80° today.

That's our bus behind the jeep. And the mountains in the background.

Our campgrounds has a pond, a heated pool, a 100° hot tub, and a fire pit. We are parked in an old citrus grove. All the oranges, lemons, and grapefruit I can pick and eat.

And GRASS!  In the desert!

Desert Views

The wash behind Gary's house in North Ranch.

The desert is beautiful, in its own way. Most of the plants have to protect themselves from the creatures that live here. And from the scorching heat. They all have thorns, that you quickly developed a respect for. An gental brush against  a fuzzy teddy bear chola and you may require stitches after the emergency doctor removes the hundreds of needles.

Wickenburg is full of strange characters.

The old west city didn't have a jail so they chained the law breakers (mostly drunks) to the town tree. As the story goes; they ran out of tree space so they chained one drunk to a log. He woke up the next morning, picked up the log and walked over to the saloon to start drinking again.

Wickenburg has lots of full size sculptures place around town. This one is more interesting than some of the other. Like the singing cabelero below and the bird and bug at the top.