So we getting ready these days.
We’re getting ready to pack up and pull out. Our project here is winding down (tomorrow, Thursday, is our last day), and Gary can just about smell the road beneath the wheels. We’ve enjoyed our time here, seeing some beautiful sights and making lovely new friends, but when Gary’s ready, he’s ready! Tomorrow after work we’ll be taking care of laundry, making one last trip to Costco, fitting in a stop at the Post Office, and maybe enjoying a final In N Out burger. (OK, so it might not be our final FINAL burger, but it will at least be our final one at THIS In N Out!)
And we’re be getting ready to say good-bye to our new friends. We had a fun group this month – one couple was on their first SOWER project, and the other couple had been full-timing for about 20 years! Quite some diversity! But we all meshed together just fine, and had a grand time. The work wasn’t too hard – the guys mostly worked on painting and refinishing things, while we ladies went between cleaning pre-school classrooms (you don’t want to look at the underside of those tables, believe you me), to putting together admission packets to filling eggs for the Easter egg hunt next week.

Gotta love the diversity of a Sower Project!
Here’s our little group -

Oh, yeah, we had a fun month!

And out in the field that Joshua Tree is getting ready to finish its burst into spring.
Here it was on March 11th-

and it was popping out a little more by the 17th -

And then this week, on the 23rd -


I certainly hope I get to see more of these as we continue our travels in the desert!

And we’re getting ready to be tourists for a week, too! We’ll be traveling to Prescott, Arizona, but along the way we’ll be stopping at Death Valley National Park and then the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Can’t wait for that!

And I’m also getting ready to get some potholders in the mail. The offer is still open, just so you know.

But right now, I’m getting ready to hit the sack. Can’t be shirking on my last day on the job!
Sweet dreams!

Remember last weekend and the “no adventure” post? Well, we more than made up for it on Friday. It was lovely potpourri of hiking, driving, and learning, with even a little shopping thrown in for good measure.
Ready? Let’s go!
First the shopping.

We’d been told about a very eclectic store on the way to Devil’s Punchbowl called Charlie Browns. They said it was a store where you could find just about anything. ANYTHING might be a little too big of a word, but there certainly a wide variety of “stuff”.
You could pick up your fresh produce

and turn around and enjoy a wine tasting.

If you wander outside, you can pick out a new lawn ornament -

(Quite a bargain, too, it seems).

And if cows aren’t quite your thing, how about a bison or a zebra or a dinosaur?-

or even your knight in (not very) shining armor!

You can pick up some speciality candy

or go for the standard gift shop sweets.

You can pick up a game for your backyard BBQ,

(or play it indoors – you can, you know!),
and even try something new for throwing on the barbie!

But I confess that what really brought us into the store was this -


We needed the energy. Honest.
On to Devil’s Punchbowl

We started out with a nice little nature walk before we tackled the hike down the punch bowl.




There is a creek that runs through the bottom of the canyon – it was lovely!


But judging by some of the rock configuration, it seems that once upon a time there was a lot more water moving around here!


We’re not sure how these folks got up on the top of those rocks

but hey, they’re young. I don’t know how they are getting down, either!
We did manage to spot some interesting (to us anyway) critters along our walk.

The Red Haired Velvet Ant (though it is actually a wingless wasp).

A Common Side-blotched Lizard

And a Western Fence Lizard.
All of these are pretty common in these parts, but since we’re not from these parts, we thought we’d document their existence here!
And one thing you need to know about the hike? The map indicated it was about a mile and a half round trip hike. Let me tell you, it might have been a mile or so down, but it was easily four miles on the way up. Easily.
But, since the day was still young (and we had all that donut energy helping us along), we decided to take a drive north to the Red Rock Canyon State Park. We took a route through Edwards Air Force Base, which we discovered is pretty much in the middle of nothing.


But we did find this interesting gate sign -

Don’t know if they were keeping the tortoises in or out or warning of possible tortoise crossings/stampedes, but it certainly caught our eye!
But I digress – the Red Rocks, right?




So the rocks were pretty cool, but this is what really caught Gary’s eye -

Oh, yeah. Dirt Road. 4-Wheel Drive Dirt Road.

It started out pretty tame – some good dips over the washes, but nothing too major. But that was about to change -

That’s Gary checking out the disappearing road at the top of the hill -


OK – it started to get a little better – this is like a little “resume speed” zone here

(See the “real” road over on the left? So near, and yet so far!)
But then the “serious off-road” stretch appeared -



Really, that IS the road. Really.
We pressed on, slowly, navigating around the biggest rocks, staying away from the edges

Until we came to a less-stressful stretch

but then we turned the corner and came to this.

We checked out going left

Or maybe going right

But the answer was always the same. DEAD END.
The only way out was to turn around and go back. And I confess that going back was (to me) much worse, because we knew what was ahead. And I also knew that now I would be on the “edge” side of some of the more precarious stretches. (No pictures of that either way since my eyes were clamped shut!)
We made it without mishap, but it was a very long ride back to that blessed highway! (Kind of like that 4 mile hike back UP out of Devil’s Punchbowl.)

So, like I said, it was quite a full day! And aside from a couple of moments of absolute terror, lots of fun all around.
And maybe when California gets out of it’s budget crunch, it can make some new maps of the Red Rock Canyon.
Please.

On the road again…..Ah, those are lovely words to us. As much as we enjoy our projects, there is still the wanderlust in our veins. New roads, new places, new friends……
Here’s Gary pulling out the drive (we need a nice level spot to hook-up, so we were driving separately until after we got diesel.)

Our last drive down Dillon Road -

Our last time down the hill toward Palm Springs -

And then on to takin’ care of business -
Propane

Diesel

(Did you know that many fuel pumps will only let you pump $75.00 at a time. Trust me, that wasn’t nearly enough!)

And then comes the “hook-up”. While Gary is busy attaching the truck to the tow bar on the rig,

my job is to do the “inside work”. That means putting on the auxiliary brake (every time Gary hits the brakes on Lizzie, this brake also pushes on the brake in the truck. That way we don’t have a 5000lb. truck pushing us down the mountains.)

After I get the brake in place, then I have to do all the transmission “stuff”.

You can bet I stand outside while Gary pulls Lizzie forward, making sure that the wheels are turning and the steering wheel isn’t locked.

That would be bad. Really bad.
So, here’s the driver, all ready to hit the road.

Here we are, driving through the fields of windmills for the last time.

(And loving that we got to follow an In-N-Out truck for part of the way. We LOVE In-N-Out!)
We weren’t going all that far – only about 175 miles, but it did involve going up those mountains -

and then coming back down-

(when we really appreciated that auxiliary brake!)
We were headed to Palmdale, CA, which is located about 70 miles north of Los Angeles, in the “high desert”.

Those were pretty impressive high-tension wires – we think they probably came from the Hoover Dam.
We made it to our resting place, a Walmart parking lot in Palmdale.
And that is the nuts and bolts of our day!

Propane – $78.98
Diesel Fuel – $218.01 (but then again, we hadn’t filled up since November!)
Garlic Bread from Walmart (ah, small pleasures) – 1.74

Being on the road again (even if it wasn’t very far) – Priceless!

I hit the “publish” button for my last post – “The Promise of Spring“, took a quick nap and then joined the other Sower’s over at “their place” for one last game of cards. And wouldn’t you know it, over there, on their patch of desert, was this beautiful sight -

Now that is some beautiful Promise of Spring!

Now, I know that lots of you are still under a significant (and possibly annoying) blanket of snow, but here in the desert, things are beginning to feel like spring. I was hoping that we would still be here when the desert really blooms, but it looks like we’ll miss the Really Big Show. However, as I took a last little walk around the grounds today, and then checked back through some other shots I’ve taken this month, I definitel feel like the Big Bloom is just around the corner.
(Please don’t ask me to identify these flowers! Generally speaking, if they don’t come with an identifying spike, I’m clueless!)

Here are some of the pink ones -


And a selection of the yellow ones (I know, I’m getting pretty technical here….)

Some odds and ends (the one on the bottom right is from a tree, and the one with the truck in the background is a fairly good sized bush)

Ok, this one I know – the Ocotillo. This looks like a cactus, but is not. When it’s dry, it drops all of its leaves to conserve water. Once it rains, little green leaves pop out all along the stem. And then they produce those beautiful red “flag” flowers on the very tips. Not very many of the ones we saw at Joshua Tree were in bloom, but we did find a couple. Pretty cool, doncha think?

And then there are the cacti.
Can you see the buds hiding in the thorns on the top picture?

I bet they are going to be beautiful.
And these -

or this one -

Even the Cholla were getting ready to bud -

The flowers on the cholla will be magenta. Man, I hope we find some of those at our next stop!
Since the locals have all been commenting on just how green everything is becoming, I thought I’d compare a couple of pictures I took today with ones taken back in early February. The pictures on the left are from Feb 4, the ones on the right, Mar. 1.

Ok, I guess I can see a little bit more green. But I confess, it’s hard for this Pennsylvania/New England girl to really get caught up in how green everything is here. (But then again, PA nots so very green right now either!).
Ah, the Promise of Spring!

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Tomorrow we will be leaving the Coachella Valley behind. We are heading to our March project, Crosswind Community Church , up in the “high desert” north of Los Angeles. I think there might be hope for Spring in the Desert yet!

PS – there are a couple more flower shots, along with the ones I used in the collages HERE, if you’d like to check them out.