Goodbye Palm Springs, Hello High Desert, Yermo, CA - October 31, 2016

Happy Halloween!!


It has been a good 6 night stay in the Palm Springs area. Our last outing was to the Joshua Tree National Park. After hitting the visitor center to get our passport stamped,

The NP sign photo.

The entrance.

Besides all the Joshua trees,

there were big piles of rocks all over.

We drove to the Keys View area. This had a really cool view of the entire Coachella Valley.

And more rocks.

Next stop was the Jumbo Rocks campground (not for big rigs) and Skull Rock, where we stopped to eat our lunch.

Skull Rock

Heading south through the park, we stopped ay the Cholla cactus garden.

Then back on to Interstate 10 and home. It was a good day.

Around 8 AM on Monday morning, we headed out of the Palm Springs TT park and headed for Barstow. We are heading for a Christian Fellowship rally in Death Valley and broke the trip in half by stopping for the night in Yermo at Peggy Sue's 50's Diner.

Only 1 night here and we will get to Death Valley tomorrow.



Stay tuned....

From Idyllwild to Palm Springs TT Park, Palm Desert, CA - October 27, 2016

Moving day, and no rain or wind. A good day to drive, except I have to drive down 6000 ft on a narrow, twisty scary road for 30 miles.

We were off.

Through the little town of Idyllwild.

And leaving the high altitude forest.

Down and around we go. Slowly, lots of turn-outs.

Actually, it wasn't all that bad. I kept it in 2nd or third gear most of the way.

And back on 'normal' road again.

It was a 129 mile day, Highway 243, to 74, to 79, then Interstate 10 and the Palm Springs area.

We got a good spot at the Palm Springs Thousand Trail park in Palm Desert.

The next day, we headed off to check out the Palm Springs Aerial Tram. After paying $5.00 to get into the Tram area and park, we bought our tickets for $25.95 each. And well worth it!

We got parked,

and took some pictures by the 'old' tram cars.

They took our picture as we got inline to wait for our ride.

Here comes our tram.

And up we go. Really cool! The floor rotates so while you are going up, you get to see all around. The tram holds up to 80 people. There were about 20 onboard.

Awsome!

At the top, we watched a couple of movies, and walked all over taking in the views.

Awesome views from over 8000 ft up.

Lots of cool dead trees. They make great pictures.

There is where we started. Way down there.

Another snag.

There was a pathway down from the tram station into the wilderness area. We stopped and ate the lunch we packed. The weather was nice. 90 at the bottom, and 60 up here.

We walked down to where all the trails start

and checked out the Mt San Jacinto State Park Ranger station, where people were registering and getting permits for backpacking here in the wilderness.

We walked around one of the shorter nature trails. Beautiful forest, large trees, very healthy.

Then it was time to head out. We hiked back up to the tram station and boarded our tram down. Love it when the tram crosses over one of the support towers. It swings the tram. Cool!

At the bottom, I took a few more pictures.

And a tram selfie.

Hey look, a mountain sheep.

One last look at the bottom tram station and the cables and towers going up the mountain.

We had a fun time here.

On the way home, we cruised down Palm Springs Ave and along El Paso Drive. Man, there are some fancy resorts around here.

We sure are enjoying this nice weather here.

Stay tuned....