Hanging out with good friends is an excellent thing, but it sure makes it hard to stay on top of this blogging thing! The good news is that I did get the taxes done, the laundry washed, folded and put away, and made some long over-due phone calls. Since things are pretty quiet today (Don & Jenny left this morning for their SOWER project and we don’t go until tomorrow) and we have no excursion or errand plans, I’ll try to get caught up a bit. But do I start where I left off, or with what is most recent (and fresher in my brain!)? Oy! Such decisions!
Let’s start with recent – and work our way back, OK?
Joshua Tree Adventure – March 29
We had ‘done’ Joshua Tree National Park back in 2010 (check them out Here and Here and Here), but National Parks are always fun to revisit. Needless to say – it was still stunningly beautiful!
However, since just driving around the park isn’t quite exciting enough, we decided to tackle the Berdoo Canyon Drive. Again.
Can I say right now that the last 6 years have not improved this canyon drive in the least?
It wasn’t until we reached the actual canyon part that things really got interesting.
(This picture is of the truck behind us after we had made it through that first rough spot. Eventually there were two behind us and one in front of us. It was quite a support team!)
Our little canyon caravan!
Here’s a short video of one of our ‘trouble spots’. Jenny is hanging out the back window giving clearance reports, Don and our new ‘we’re all in this together’ friends, are moving around advising from all different angles. And me? Well, I’m happy to be the videographer, since me gasping in the back seat isn’t really a help to anyone!
I guess you can tell (since I’m writing this post!) we eventually made it out!
Look – HARD SURFACE!!!!
The truck made it out mostly unscathed (a couple of scratches under the running boards), and we all (okay, me)  got back to breathing normally. Eventually.
Earlier in the week (Easter Sunday, actually), we had another fun drive.
This time it was a bit less stressful (or fun, depending on your perspective!). But it was a beautiful drive nonetheless up to Big Bear Lake.
Gary had been missing real trees after our three months in the desert, so it did his heart good to see some good ol’ tall trees!
Plus, we even found a bit of (dirty) snow to play in.
(Not that we were actually in need of a snow-fix. But we made the best of it anyway!)
It was such a good R&R week. We hadn’t seen these good friends since late November, so we had much to catch up with. We ran errands together (including a productive stop at the Sketcher Factory Outlet :)), shared meals, played games and watched our favorite TV shows.
And spent some quality time on the road!
Thanks for stopping by! If you’d like to see more pictures of our Joshua Tree Adventure, you can check them out HERE!
And here are some additional shots from our much tamer Big Bear Drive!
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