Saturday, January 29, 2022

Visit to Joshua Tree National Park

 Before I start today off let me cover yesterday's wasted day first.  Started our morning out as normal and around 10:30 while eating breakfast and reading blogs all of a sudden my internet went completely dead on my phone and my hotspot.

I tried figuring it out myself for about an hour and then called Verizon for help.  After almost an hour of elevator music I finally got someone on the line.  She tried to help for awhile and then finally turned me over to Ron, a Verizon technician.  

That poor guy went through everything in his book to help and nothing worked.  I finally said maybe the tower went down all of a sudden and I would run the 26 miles down to Indio, California to the Walmart and see if they work there.  I needed a few things anyway.

Yep! ๐Ÿ˜  Got 5G and the hotspot got 4G.  All is good.  That pretty much ended our day and it was time for Gold Rush at 5 o'clock.  Luckily, that worked perfectly and we finished our day with fried chicken breasts, corn and dessert.

Dolly sent a nice picture of a Red Tailed hawk on our bird feeder๐Ÿ˜‹

Now for today.  We're on Pacific Time now so we woke early had a quick breakfast and by 11 o'clock we were on our way for a day visit in the Joshua Tree NP.

The southern entrance is not very exciting for 35 miles till you hit the main road coming in from 29 Palms in the north.


Our drive was pretty along a winding road up into the park and then down into the valley where all the huge stones and Joshua Trees are.


Of course Nick had to climb it.

Arrived at our first Joshua Tree.

We both got in on the act when we came upon a huge one.



Finally after about 50 miles we arrived at Key View.  The road ends here overlooking  the Salton Sea, Coachella and Indio in the valley way below.
San Jacinto Mountains.


Salton Sea.

Indio in the Coachella Valley.

Santa Rosa Mountains.

Cholla Patch.

 Skull Rock checked out Nick.๐Ÿ˜€
We arrived back at the White Lion and quickly packed to head towards Indio and some good ole Internet service.  First we drove up to the campground at the Cottonwood Welcome Center and dumped and took on water again.  Cost only a donation of $5.

We arrived at the Walmart in Indio for the night.
Hopefully, we can get local TV stations here to watch the play-offs.  If so, we'll stick around for another night ๐Ÿ˜Š

Thanks for stopping by.

15 comments:

  1. It's a never-ending story. Cool pics of Joshua Tree NP. Was there signs of the fire or was that in a different area? Nick looks like he's gained some weight. Must be your cooking. ๐Ÿ˜„

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  2. The snow above Palm Springs reminded me of the cable car to the top. Maybe you should do that for lunch tomorrow. If you had a small TV you could probably pick up the LA stations from the top of the mountain.
    Phil

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  3. Good to hear from you again. I was concerned. Loved the pictures you posted. I've always been fascinated with the Joshua Tree area. Regarding the comment about the cable cars....we did that in 1974. It's awesome. Elva

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  4. Hope you are able to get the playoffs otherwise enjoy the ride to Borrego Springs. Looks like you took a nice ride through the park.

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    1. Had a nice ride. Unfortunately it was cloudy and cool. We've got great reception for both games here in Indio and it is much warmer down here in the valley. Going to be 80 today ๐Ÿ™‚

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  5. Great pictures of the valley from up there. I'm surprised you didn't see any climbers. Joshua Tree is known for bouldering ... climbing up the side of those rocks with no ropes, just hands.

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    1. Thanks Nancy. We saw a few climbing groups but they had not started their climbs yet.

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  6. Nice pancho Nick. Did you get that on the trip?

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  7. Some cell towers Verizon uses are ones they 'own' (perhaps control is a better word), and others they are just customers of. If one of the latter towers goes down, they (Verizon) doesn't even know it since they don't control it. THAT is why the tech could not help you.

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    1. Thanks Dave. I figured something happened to a tower to just drop me like that.

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  8. I remember the super strong winds coming up out of the valley at Key View. Almost blew the nose right off my face.

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