California - Day 3 - to Joshua Tree National Park

Cottonwood Campground, Joshua Tree National Park

Thursday, 3 March 2022

When the dogs and I were walking around the Needles campground before we left this morning, I talked to a woman from Walla Walla, WA, who said they come down here every year from October until March.  (Walla Walla is in far eastern WA and tends to get some real winter weather.)  She said they go back for the summer but don't have a house any more and instead stay in their Airstream in a campground - yet another RV full-timer.  Her t-shirt said, "Blessed Beyond Measure."

This campground is entirely paved in gravel, which was a problem for Gracie who prefers walking on solid pavement.  But the aridness of the gravel was diluted by lots and lots of palms and cactus, azaleas and oleanders - one just starting to bloom.

The office fills a bird feeder early in the morning and all kinds of birds come, many swooping down from tall palm trees.  That swooping motion was much like a hawk's flight when it aims at a small bird for dinner, and the little birds would often scatter until they found it was just a crow, or something else non-hawkish.

today's drive

On the road

I hadn't realized that the campground I'd been staying in was not really near Needles, so I started today's drive by going right through town on Route 66.  And Needles (pop. 4,931) still looks much as it might have back when people drove Route 66 as the only road to Los Angeles.

I was appalled to find that gasoline was nearly $6.00/gallon and wondered if that would be the price I'd find all over the state, or if it was just the price I found in a small town.  The very cheapest I saw was $5.59 at a Valero station, but they turned out to be out of gas (new version of bait-and-switch).  So I just kept on going down the road.

The road - US-95 - took me for 95 miles down to Blythe, passing the Mojave Desert on one side and the Colorado River on the other.  Despite being a US highway, it was a narrow winding road with lots of dips - dips significant enough to be labeled "dips" all along the way.  

I'm not making up the bit about the dips: at one point the road ahead looked like a narrow undulating black ribbon with a wide yellow stripe down the center and 2 narrow white ones down the sides, and I counted 34 dips within 4 or 5 minutes.  Then the road turned and there were still more dips, but I stopped counting.

I passed several RVs stopped here and there with flat tires, which worried me a bit.  I was surprised to see lots of semis, mostly going north - surprised because that narrow, winding, dippy road didn't seem like semi territory.  But it was a US highway, after all.

I passed one of those California Agriculture Inspection Stations, though they were oriented for traffic coming into CA on state highway 62 and didn't care about those of us already here.

I passed a private ranch named Not So Green Acres.

A sign told me I was entering the Colorado River Indian Reservation, which I hadn't heard of.  It's a federally recognized tribe that's actually a joining of 4 ethnic groups.  Most of their land is in western Arizona, with a capital in Parker, AZ.

This whole section of the drive seemed dry and desert-y so I was surprised to see several signs along the way telling me it was a "Flash Flood Area - No Parking."  But now and then I could see the Colorado River not far away and suppose it overflows its banks sometimes.  Though maybe not so much any more since the states are arguing about too much water being taken out upstream, leaving too little for the downstream states.

I passed a historical marker for Giant Desert Figures; I didn't stop but looked it up and learned there are carvings in the desert floor - up to 105' long (so "giant" is accurate) - and no one yet knows how old they are or who made them.  Here's the Wikipedia page   https://en.wikipedia.org/Blythe-Intaglios and the historical marker page    https://www.hmdb.org/Blythe-intaglios  On that 2nd one, scroll all the way to the end to see photos of these figures.

I crossed a large irrigation ditch filled with water and suddenly found myself in cropland.  A harvested cotton field, a brilliant green crop which might have been either alfalfa or Bermuda grass, according to a nearby sign.  What I smelled is grass, though I guess the grain could smell like that too.

I came to Blythe, which didn't seem particularly blithe to me, looking mostly like a desert farm town.  And I guess some folks agreed with me because they lost 2,500 residents between the 2010 and 2020 censuses, and now have just over 18,000 folks.  On the other hand, I noticed that it did seem to be a mildly thriving town, as I drove through, so I guess what's there is doing just fine.  Blythe hosts an annual bluegrass festival and bills it as one of the US's largest.

At Blythe I met I-10 and drove west for 60+ miles.  It was mostly large flat desert area ringed by mountains.  I saw a sign that said: Dust/Wind Storms When Lights Flashing.  They were, which made me alert, though I never ran into either.  I passed long stretches with no signs of people other than power lines.

Highways in California seem to be very well-equipped with call boxes.  Here, a stranded motorist would be within reasonable walking distance of help.

I did pass an orchard of palm trees and thought they might be dates.  I saw a sign advertising a date festival, which is held annually in Indio, farther along the road.

I came to a section of road construction that lasted for 30 miles, which seemed excessive to me.  Especially because they kept warning drivers to keep the speed down to 60 mph for that whole way when there weren't any workers, equipment or work anywhere in sight.  And only a few semis honored that speed limit, while all other traffic drove as usual, which made it hard for me to figure out how to not obstruct traffic.

A sign said the elevation was 1,000'; Blythe was at 266', so we'd been climbing.  And farther along I came to Chiriaco Summit, where the elevation was 1,705'.  At the town of Chiriaco Summit, they have something called the General Patton Memorial Museum.  I don't connect Patton with southern CA so I looked it up and learned it's basically a military museum.  They say they want to honor veterans by educating the public on modern US military history, thereby promoting peace (they hope).  A noble goal.

I turned off the highway into Joshua Tree National Park and found myself on a very narrow road with chewed up edges and sand shoulders - not the best road for me but hey, that's what's there.  Just outside the park boundaries were more than a dozen boondockers.  The National Park Service calls it "dispersed camping" and allows it only in that area, which is BLM land.

I saw warning signs for Bighorn Sheep, though sadly I didn't see any actual sheep while I was here.

We stopped at the visitor center to check into the campground, and they had a sign that explained what kind of country we'd gotten to.

see details enlarged below

I stopped to dump my glass, cans and #1 plastics, which were the only items they recycled.  (Odd that they'd take glass, which I found so hard to get rid of elsewhere, and didn't take paper, which everyone else does take.)  

I stopped again to dump my waste tanks and spent some time helping a young woman whose sewer cap was stuck.  It took quite a while and we'd just enlisted the help of a couple who stopped after us when the cap finally came loose.  That couple turned out to be from Switzerland (he didn't speak English at all and hers was limited) who now live in San Jose.  Who could ever have dreamed that up?

The campground, as usual for the NPS, didn't have any hookups, but it was nearly full and I'd snagged one of the last available spots.  The problem with us going for walks turned out not to be other dogs so much as all the cactus alongside the road.  I haven't been able to explain to my puppies that cactus is something to avoid, but they seem to have learned "watch out!" which is helpful.  Those cholla, with their bazillion spikes all over, are scary just to look at, let alone when my dogs get their noses near them.