Rick and Cathy Hit the Road

 Lesson number two is always, always chock both the front AND the back of your trailer wheels! Otherwise your trailer will roll forward when lowering the stabilizers and cause it to wobble off the jack and crash to the ground bending the stabilizers and causing a big kerplunk. Luckily, while I’m freaking out my unusually calm husband says, “It’s not as bad as it looks. I can fix this. I brought a jack and I can bend the stabilizers back and reattach them.” None of which I can do so it all sounded bad to me! In about an hour he had the trailer upright, hooked onto the truck with the stabilizers fixed and tucked up ready to get on the road. I was no help at all except to tell him how wonderful I thought he was! The day was saved from being a total disaster when we stopped in Baker California to snap a picture of the worlds largest thermometer and stop at the Alien Fresh Jerky. Little did we know we were really close to Area 51! There were aliens everywhere!

 What fun it was to romp around Joshua Tree NP where everywhere you turn a page from a Dr Seuss book jumps out at you and begs you to interact with it! We climbed, hiked, and explored from sunup to sundown. The Joshua trees were unique and reminded us of truffula trees! Each one more different than the last.    And the boulders! A playground for all ages. Each one calling to you, “climb me, climb me, come explore the nooks and crannies. At one point I lost sight of Rick completely as he was way more adventurous than I was! Later we ran into a park ranger heading out to an old mine that they were trying to save and restore. We walked along with him to the site while he told us more about the park itself and some historical stories about the mine and land feud between two rascals resulting in a shoot out and the death of one of them. Cool find! All in all it was a great 2 days in Joshua Tree National Park!

 Yes, it’s true. There is a beautiful oasis smack dab in the middle of the desert. And there’s water! We put Hailey in a doggy daycare and spent the day exploring Palm Springs. After two busted up plans; one to ride the aerial gondola to the top of the mountain overlooking the city (it was closed for the day due to technical difficulties) and the other to hike among the lush green tropical palm oasis in Indian Canyon ( also closed due to recent weather damage) we opted to hike up to Tahquitz Falls.  After working up an appetite we headed into town to check out “the strip and see if we could spot someone famous. All we could find was Lucille Ball so I got a picture with her! She was kinda cold towards me though…

 On the way to Palm Springs we stopped in Yuma to visit the Historical Yuma Territorial Prison. It was considered to be “the hell hole” and housed famous stagecoach robbers, murderers, polygamists and outlaws of the 18th century. In one picture I’m standing in a cage that they actually used to put prisoners in dark solitary confinement. This cage was in a stone cave like room with a hole at the top of the cave in which the guards would throw down scorpions and snakes to torment the prisoners who were completely in the dark in this cage!  That night we stayed at a Harvest Host that was a BBQ place just outside of town. It was a cool old historical building turned into a BBQ joint next to fields and fields of cauliflower that are grown here Year round, frequented by ATV riders, bikers and other local folks. Had dinner with another couple from Cleveland, Ohio also camping using Harvest Host and traveling the country. Let’s just say we did a lot of listening- they had lots to shar...