Joshua Tree National Park, Murals of 29 Palms, Pioneertown

I just had to post up a bunch of photos of this beautiful area. We motored up to Joshua Tree national Park, a drive of almost an hour from Desert Hot Springs. It was a pretty drive going through Morongo Valley on the way. Joshua Tree was awesome! Fantastic rock formations, dotted with several rock climbers all over the place.

These photos were taken at Hidden Valley, where cattle rustlers hid out with their illegally obtained beef. The hike was somewhat rigorous, with lots of ups and downs. The Valley floor was fairly flat with pinon and junipers, as well as a few Joshua Trees and agave plants.

We had a nice lunch after our hike.

Throughout the park there are tons of Joshua Trees, not really close to each other, but as the photo here shows, they are spaced but many especially on the flatter areas.

We were fortunate that many of the trees were starting to blossom. This bunch of white will become simply huge in a short time. The trees' greenery are spiky in nature, and at the end of each spike is a very sharp end, like a needle. The trunks become bark-like with age, but most of the trees we saw had a covering of straw-like fringes covering the trunk.

On the way back to the RV Park, we stopped at PioneerTown, a 'fake' western Main Street (They spell it 'Mane Street'). The structures were built in the early 1950s in a movement by Gene Autry to create a movie set for his many motion pictures. Its season opens April 3, so we were early, and there wasn't much to see other than the buildings.

When active, there are concessions and gunfight recreations, with many folks in period costumes.

A real gem was found at the town of TwentyNine Palms. This community has a great city arts and beautification project ongoing since the 1990s. There are over 20 huge murals adorning the sides of many civic and privately owned buildings.

The quality of work is very good!

The one on the left is a tromp'l'oile work of the artist who fell asleep at his job. Click on the image to see how the murals has been gridded out.

I liked this one mostly because I enjoy vehicles. This is a bus/taxi service from the 30s and 40s from town to the Park.

We move on Wednesday morning, traveling to Rancho Oso RV Park, just north of Santa Barbara. We are excited to see more of California, and we have enjoyed what we have seen here in the Palm Springs-Desert Hot Springs area.

Saturday- Indian and Andreas Canyon

We finally got some hiking in, traveling to the Canyons south of Palm Springs. This scenic area is just south of the city, and is actually run by Agua Caliente Band of Native Americans.

The Andreas Canyon has an 'easy' trail which we opted for. We would hate to see what a moderate trail was, as there were many rocky and steep segments to this easy one.

This area is supposed to be the only place in North America where palm trees were indigenous! Rising above the canyon floor were several dramatic rock formations. There also were many different kinds of wildflowers, although we thought there would be more in numbers. Perhaps it is too late in the season. The average highs we have had are in the mid-80s.

We did see several lizards, from little ones (2-3 inches) to a couple of bigger ones, probably 8 or 9 inches long. We also saw a rattlesnake just resting under a rock on the higher, sunnier part of the hike. It's hard to tell just how long this snake was.

Later in the day we went to a market in Palm Springs and bought some good looking fruits and vegetables. Then relaxed, walked around the RV Park and watched a peculiar movie, Sunshine Cleaners, where Amy Adams character, in need of $, set up a crime scene cleanup business.

Also pumped about Northern Iowa's amazing upset of the #1 #1 seed Kansas. That was fun to watch!

Friday -Palm Springs Aerial Tramway

On Friday we went to the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, northwest of Palm Springs. It was a fantastic experience! The tram travels from 2,643 feet to 8516 in just 10 minutes!

The car's floor rotates approximately twice during the ride, allowing us to see all views as we ascended. The temperature went from 75 to 51!

The cars are the world's largest rotating cars in the world and were designed and made in Switzerland.

The view from the top is spectacular...This photo doesn't do it justice. You can see several towns and cities from this lofty vantage point.

Here we are at the mountaintop station, enjoying the natural beauty of Mt. San Jacinto. It is hard to imagine how this thing was put together and constructed on rocky mountain sides. A couple of the towers had helicopter landing pads which were used to transport materials up during the construction.

Callifornia

We are now in sunny California! Staying at the Western Horizons Resort, Desrt Pools, near Desert Hot Springs. This is a very nice park, clean, friendly and lots of activities. Our view is of some beautiful mountains.

We arrived yesterday early afternoon, and on this first full day we need to do some shopping and check out the area. There are several places to see (notably museums and the Palm Springs Tramway), several casinos, plus the mountains.

We did walk Away the Pounds this morning, and it was good to get back into it. We are parked right behind another Excel, Roy and Bernie from South Dakota (they are REALLY from South Dakota). They are every nice folks, retired ranchers from north of Deadwood.

March Madness, the NCAA's premier tournament, starts today. While I tried to get a bracket pool going on line, I had to settle for 'me against the world' on ESPN.com. Maybe I can get one going next year. Go Badgers!

Our Last Ride

Today was our last ATV ride of this season! Sniff! Sniff! We will certainly miss our ATV friends!!!

We went northwest of Benson, to ride the J Six Ranch, going through Ash Canyon. The scenery was amazing, simply amazing. Fantastic mountainsides, a great variety of cactus and plants, and then a beautiful river valley studded with gorgeous white sycamores. They seemed to grow in groups set in an oval. The white trunks and branches gave marvelous contrast to the other colors of Arizona...which are unbelievably green!

sycamores were all along the river

Our ride was shortened though, because of the melting snow of the mountains. The creeks were wide and deep with water. We finally had to turn around when we came up to very swiftly moving river that also cut deep into the riverbed. When we returned to the staging area we had lunch and a really nice long visit with our group of Pat and Charlie, Rick and Kristina, and Jerry and Vickie.

water was over our route frequently

We have been able to see so much of Arizona that we never would have been able to without ATVing. It has been a great experience. We had a sad farewell hugging our friends goodbye, but we know we will back next year!

Holy Trinity Monastery

Today we checked out the Holy Trinity Monastery, just a half mile down the road from our RV Park. This was founded in the mid 1970's, and has flourished into a beautiful complex of buildings, RV Park, plantings, paths, and meditation garden.

There was also a museum/art collection of a great variety of crucifixes, tableaus, and carved holy sculptures. The collection included a great number of nativity sets as well as paintings and art of regional interest.

It was amazingly serene here, very quiet and spiritual...The huge cross can be seen from highway 80, and is very distinctive in design. The Chapel of the Lady of Guadalupe is the main architectural structure in the complex and is beautifully finished inside and out, with original tiles embedded on parts of the interior walls, massive wood trim and tables with natural tree trunks as bases.

We did visit with a man that was staying at the RV Park. He said the sites are $300 a month, but after two weeks, you had an 'interview' with a committee to see if you could stay on. Weeks later you had an interview with the 'head guy' and if you did well on that, you could stay longer and come back at any time in the future. The man continued to tell us that staying there included totally volunteer work at the monastery, with anything from painting, carpentry, cleaning, yard work, working bake and craft sales, and working on the pecan shelling, bagging, etc. We bought two pounds of cleaned pecans on the way out.

It was worth the visit!

the front of the Lady of Guadalupe Chapel

Later tonight we went with Dave and Joyce Gamber to $1 taco night at the Turquoise Hills Golf Club just south of Benson. Yummy tacos, and lots of fun visiting with several other couples from Valley Vista RV Park.

Time to watch our DVR recording of Survivor! I have Rupert and Ellen has Sandra in the Fort Dodge Pool...We are in the hunt for $$$!!!!

Steak and Settlers

Got behind again. Bad weather for the past few days. Windy, cool, rainy. Weird rain here. It sprinkles for a bit, then stops, then rains, then gets sunny, then sprinkles, and on and on.

Last week Thursday, Pat and Janet McNamara treated us to a steak dinner, after which we played Settlers of Catan. I squeaked the win out over Ellen,who has been playing great.

Saturday's weather was really crummy, so we hung around at home, with Pat and Janet coming over for another game of Settlers. Janet won out in this one, she played very well. The high wind blew off two of our flags from the holder on the front of our Excel. Still missing is our United States flag. A neighbor found our Colombian flag stuck in the bushes some ways away.

Sunday we had them over for snacks and another Settlers game, which Janet won handily. Watched the Academy Awards, and I enjoyed Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin quite a bit. Some of the stars (especially George Clooney) did not appreciate the jabs. Avatar was outdone by the Hurt Locker (which we haven't seen). We did see Avatar and enjoyed it immensely, but have no basis of comparison. The 3D thing was awesome. Some of the battle stuff was a bit much.

Monday was a wild day, with Ellen fasting for a blood test in the early morning for her Mayo Clinic Doctor. Then we ran all over Sierra Vista shopping running errands, filling with fuel etc. Had a simply lousy breakfast at Denny's. Raced back to the RV Park, dropped Ellen off, then I went on to Benson for woodcarving. I was really late, and didn't get any carving done, but on a jigsaw, George from Kansas cut out my 2010 Christmas ornament blanks for the grandkids.

We enjoyed another steak dinner, thanks to Dave and Joyce Gamber. Dave BBQ'ed up some great rib eyes. We dined with the Gambers, Dennis, also from Colorado, and Mike and Barbara from the St. Louis area. I truly pigged out, as everything was scrumptious.

Hope to get some carving done today!

Mowry, a ghost town

On Friday Ellen and I met our ATV group at the Mercedes Restaurant in Patagonia. After a good breakfast, we drove to our staging site, unloaded the Honda and went on our ride with Pat & Charlie, Rick and Kristina, and Jerry and Gator, his dog. Vickie decided not to ride, I think because she knew it was going to be a rocky ride.

At our lunch site in Mowry

We went up a nice hill to view the San Rafael Valley. This is now dubbed Geode Hill, as we have found many many round geodes, some split with some crystals showing. I have enough for the grandkids and some for us as well.

We then explored some trails, one of which had mountain lion pawprints for at least a mile. We had lunch at Mowry, a ghost town which thrived from a coal and lead mine. Some of the remains of the buildings can still be seen. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and it was good to be out in nature.

Remains of an adobe building in Mowry

Our last stop was a rest at the cemetery of Harshaw. It was amazing to see tier after tier of grave sites on a rocky hillside. Between sites were narrow footpaths, with very tricky footing. I would think that funerals would be a very difficult thing here on a rocky hillside. All the names we could make out were hispanic.

Today I puttered around getting some woodcarving done, and prep work done for a couple of new carvings. The weather got funny, windy and when I saw rain falling in the San Pedro River Valley, I packed up and stayed inside. Gave myself a haircut, shaved my face and head, then took a nap in anticipation of going dancing in Tombstone tonight.

A full day

Yesterday was a big workout day, as we walked away the pounds for 2 miles worth (plus the mile and a half round trip from our RV to the activity center...then changed and did water aerobics for some 40 minutes...It is worth it as I am dealing with being diagnosed as type 2 diabetic. I have lost about 12 pounds, and have dropped my blood sugars significantly. (I am also on a diabetes medicine). The blood sugars still need to be lower, but I am working on it. Watching my portions and counting my carbs.

I went to a woodcarving session at an RV Park up the road in Benson, and made some progress on a Santa figure I've been working on. There were a nice bunch of guys, some of which seem professional in their abilities with a bench knife.

Then last night we went to the potluck at our park, met Gary and Lola from Oregon--nice folks--and sat with them at a performance by Johnny Bencomo, an area star I guess. His music was a little to 'old' for us, and a little to slow. He shared a few good anecdotes, but we really appreciated his guitar playing. He had an 18 string guitar. That's a lot of strings, and we had never seen nor heard one before. He sure did get a lot of sound out of it! Sang a couple of funny songs that reminded us of our Fort Dodge friend Mike Zahm.

I was not abducted by aliens

No, I was not kidnapped.

I was not abducted by aliens.

I am not being held hostage by terrorists.

I am not in a coma.

My Mac in in good working order.

No excuses...well maybe a few:

• The third week in February I flew to Jacksonville, FL for my one year checkup for proton beam prostate cancer treatment. Lost three days there, plus one for jet lag.
• We went dancing.
• Did some ATV rides.
• Played Settlers of Catan with Pat and Janet.
• Scanned our tax information.
• Watched Survivor, Heroes vs. Villains.
• I resolved a messy email situation in which I must have been hacked and was unknowingly sending email after ameail to folks in my contact list.

All of these things are truly tiring, and at the end of the day, I simply collapse. I do need to confess that these are not excuses, but rather some of the things we have done and most of them we enjoyed doing. I hope to be a bit more diligent with this thing, if not for you, for me.

Honestly, the aliens swore me to secrecy, but I can tell you they came in peace.