Road Trip Day 17 - Saturday, 11th May, 2019

Took a drive around Needles before heading out.

This is El Garces as it looks now. This is the back of the hotel, even though it faces the parking. It was built for rail passengers, so the front is only visible from the platform. 

You can see that the Grecian pillars appear around the front, where the train platform is.

On the way out of town, the road is lined with memorials in stones to various military personnel and divisions, placed by travellers.

Whenever we travelled, we used to buy honey. I have a cupboard-full (jostling with the pickles, preserves and jams - oh, and BBQ sauces). It seemed a pity not to continue this tradition. And you have to admire someone who stands in the middle of near-desert on a deserted road selling something made from flowers. A testimony to perseverance - but also to the readiness of the desert to bloom when the rainfall is right.

This plant is seen widely in the western deserts, although this species of the genus is not native and probably came from Central America. It flowers at night, where it attracts night-flying moths and other insects for pollination. It has intricately whorled petals when in bud.

The buds gradually untwist.The flower is trumpet-shaped.

This flower was immortalised by Georgina O'Keefe in her paintings. She lived in New Mexico where it is also found.

Yellow flowers are the most common at the moment and there are a number of different species, some very similar. I have yet to identify this one as it does not quite match any of the photos in the apps. The leaves and petal shape are wrong for a dandelion species. 

Unidentified as yet

Bunny-ears Opuntia microdasys. Not native; from Mexico

Unfortunately, the road over the Cadiz Summit between Essex and Amboy is closed due to a bridge wash out. This meant a thirty mile stretch on I40 until you can rejoin 66 east of Amboy, where Roy's Cafe and Motel has been serving riders since  1927. The bikes lined up outside were on a "fun run" on 66, and also heading north to Las Vegas. They were all from Europe.

Amboys is tiny - yet it has a US Post Office, probably the most well-maintained building for a hundred miles in any direction.

At Amboys, I took a detour  to visit the Joshua Tree National Monument, about 50 miles south, as I had never been. The road took me across a moonscape of volcanic lava flow, from the volcano in the picture, and a dry lake, from which the American Chloride Company were extracting salt and chlorine. The whole area is also used by the US Military for training.

Salt Lake

This was outside the only residence for fifty miles.

Joshua Tree NM is roughly 50 miles from north to south. It forms a southern extension of the Mojave Desert and the northern part of the Colorado Desert, which extends south into the Sonoran desert.  I called briefly into Twentynine Palms Visitor Centre and headed off due south across the Joshua Tree NM, aiming for a hotel in Palm Desert, due south about 40 miles. Unfortunately, I missed the turning in the park and ended up going west to the town of Joshua Tree rather than south, necessitating a long detour on Highway 62 and then east - effectively skirting the west side of the NM. Highway 62 takes you down a steep cleft in the mountains into the Morongo valley, with the San Gorgonio mountains flanking your right  (west) and the San Rosa and San Jacinto mountains rising ahead of you to the south across the valley. The valley is narrow but flat and where 62 meets I10, which runs due east-west, covered in wind-farms.

The floor of most of the desert seen so far has been gritty and gravelly.  Here, there were fine sand dunes.

As I still had Google maps switched to "Avoid Motorways", I missed I10 and reached the hotel at Desert Palms via a back-road. As a result, I had no idea that I was actually in the Palm Springs area until I checked into the hotel and saw a sign. This is a long east-west stretch of casinos, hotels, car dealerships (no idea why the last - maybe it's a tax break). All plonked down in the middle of a desert. With no natural water. Madness.