On Monday, the real adventure begins! A road trip isn’t a road trip if we stay in the towns… We don’t know it yet, but we will spend a lot of hours in the car, on the roads.

Map of the day:

The begining isn’t really exciting as we have to leave LA, which means huge freeways and a lot of traffic. I can’t say that people drive better in California than in Florida…

Finally, we start seeing wilder scenaries. This is Palm Springs area with its wind turbines, impressive how many they are and how they are aligned… In the US, everything is huge, as always.

We stop at the entrance of Joshua Trees Park for a lunch. It is a small saloon recommended by the California guide we have. From the outside it is not really appealling, but the inside is rather cool and the food is more than correct.

After that we enter our first national park, Joshua Tree. The trees:

We have taken a map at the ranger station, so we start with a short walk (1 mile) to see Barker Dam…They probably try to make fun of us, not a single drop of water in this dam…

Next, Salton View. It is the highest point in Joshua, giving a full view of the South.

On the map there is a trail for an abandonned gold mine, either a 6 miles loop or a 2 miles one-way to the mine. We decide to do it.

On our way towards Twenty Nine Palms we pass next to some BIG skulls.

The night is already falling, it is too late to push really far so we start to look for a motel in Twentynine Palm. We find one quite easily, 50$ for the night. Small dinner in an asian fast food, and time to bed!