Sunny Days: Joshua Tree National Park/Palm Springs/Indio Field Trip

Yuma is the second most populated city in Arizona (Phoenix being the biggest) yet it seems like a small town. If you are native you are a Yuman, the high school sports nickname is The Criminals (first school was in a building attached to the prison) and the main busy street we use is 32nd Street (which intersects with Interstate 8 at 9 1/2 Avenue). The RV park offers the best entertainment so far here sooo…. We took a field trip this week for an overnight to Joshua Tree National Park (about 3 hours NW into California) timing was for good weather--70 degrees highs-- and an FMCA Rally at nearby Indio, CA. The fact that historic Palm Springs was in between the 2 was an added bonus.

Every Saturday night there is a Tribute band that performs here at Westwind--
this week it was George Strait tribute band called Troubadour --pretty good

On Wednesday's they have a jam session with musicians from Westwind--
I swear an aging Tanya Tucker is here and sang Delta Dawn--impressive

Home for a couple of months

The skies at sunset are spectacular

Joshua Tree was, as the other National Parks have been, awesome. It is very desert, rocky and pretty. The Pinto Rock formations are a dark, rich brown to contrast with the desert sand color and makes for an artists delight. We saw NO wildlife but chalked that up to the time of year.

The Joshua Tree is an odd combination of Palm Tree and Yucca grass,
there are no rings to show age--just height.

Beautiful Cholla Cactus

This is representative of the whole park. Huge rock piles dotted with Joshua trees and Cholla

We found a pretty petrified tree to sit on

We moved on to Indio where we caught up with the FMCA RV'ers having their west coast rally. There were 100's of RVs at the Riverside County Fairgrounds and we have found these gatherings are instructional, have a good trade show and a lot of new and used RV's to go through. This one did not disappoint.