December 16, 2011

Thursday, December 15, Indio, California

Junnie nearly gave me heart failure.  While Dan was taking the trash to the dumpster and I was checking to make sure our facilities function properly, he hopped down on the computer and when I came to start this blog, the screen was displaying everything turned sideways.  The cursor is really difficult to control that way, plus I’m not sure how it would be to type and read with my head at a 90 degree angle.  Fortunately my tech man straightened it out for me.  I was about to tell this crazy cat to sit up and down on the key board until he was able to get the orientation to something familiar for me.  Whew!

We left the fascinating town of Quartzsite and headed for the Pacific Ocean and the mountains just disappeared.  Poof!  They weren’t there anymore.  They vanished into flat desert with scrub oaks, stunted mesquite, and other moisture starved vegetation.  We did get a short glimpse of the Colorado River.  The bridge had high wire fencing on both sides and it was hard to get a picture of it, but the border patrol wanted everyone to stop, so I did snap a shot, complete with fencing, as they waved us through.

Just inside California a haze seemed to be growing in the near distance, and as we approached the haze, it was virtually blinding.  The fog (we finally decided) was so thick it was almost impossible to see the truck in front of us.  As we approached the town, the fog disappeared immediately until we were on the outskirts where it enclosed us again, just as suddenly as it had disappeared.  On the south side of the road was an orange grove that went for miles.  The oranges were even visible from our moving vehicle even though they were on the opposite side of the road from us.  That’s how big they are.  It was a gigantic area of fresh fruit.  I wonder if they allow people to pick their own?  As we neared Blythe, the mountains magically appeared bursting from the earth and the cacti vanished.  What a place of contrasts! 

We saw almost immediately that California is a fertile state.  Wal-Mart animal skins grown in abundance along the side of the road and black strips of a rubbery material with designs on them, were everywhere.  Sometimes they even produced completely round black bushes with concentric circular, horizontal designs.  Some  of these bushes even grew into the desert.  What prolific crops!

We had time to spend in the General George Patton museum on the very edge of the Joshua Tree National Park .  There is memorabilia from WWI to the Iraqi war going on today.  Tanks of all shapes and sizes, as well as medical wagons and fire engines are there, too.  It was a very moving place for me as I looked at the WWI exhibits , knowing my father was engaged in the” war to end all wars”.  That war wasn’t called WWI until WWII came along!  Daddy was in the medical corps and they had stretchers and some medical implements.  He often wondered if he killed more of our soldiers with used needles than the enemy killed with guns.  He said sometime he cringed having to give shots and could see the rust on the shafts as they were plunged into the arm.

The sky was cloudless by noon as we drove into Joshua Tree Park.  A plethora of vegetation greeted us everywhere we looked.  This is an arid area with the Sonora desert on the south side and the Mojave in the north.  Each desert has a totally different type of vegetation and wildlife.  It’s like being in two different worlds from one side of a mountain to another.  The mountains appear, in some areas, to be huge hairy sand dunes while others are boulders upon boulders; then again others are sheets of granite rocks aiming for the skies with jagged peaks  beyond belief.  We stopped at Cholla Cactus Garden to feast our eyes on a field of cactus that looks like antlers covered in bristly fur.  They were quite wonderful to see.  I am so glad we stopped at our National Forest and got an ” Old Lady Handicap Pass “ to all national parks and preserves.  We have been enjoying using the pass.

Arriving in Indio has given us another contrast in sites.  This is a verdant, fertile, flower filled area with immaculately clean streets, parks, roadways and lawns.  Any flower you can imagine is here and everything we see is perfectly beautiful.  There is no way Dan nor I could have imagined what polar sights we would see today.  What a glorious day this has been.  I think snow is just about the only possible type of weather extreme we have not seen.  We rode with windows open part of the time and the heat on at other times.  From one extreme to the next was today’s offerings, and they were all wonderful.

Blessings,

Trio Tripping Travelers