Campground full? Not really...

Written Tuesday morning, April 5th.

We were headed up to Joshua Tree National Park yesterday morning, and we wanted to get a fairly early start to be able to snag one of the first come, first serve camping sites at Jumbo Rocks Campground. So at 8:00am, Ruth took Helen and Tony back to Walmart for a few last minute items in case we ended up staying up there for three nights.

Meanwhile, I got Sherman all packed up and ready to go.

Overlooking Palm Springs

We set off at 9:00am yesterday morning to do part of the hike up the mountain in behind the RV park. Almost too late, because things warm up quite quickly here in the desert and they were calling for a high of 92F (33C).

But, we had our Tilley hats with us, and lots of water.

Surprise visitors!

We didn't have much planned for yesterday, but we needed to stock up on a few things. So we hopped in the Beetle and drove 4 miles (6.5 kms) to the nearest Walmart. It's always interesting to check out prices and produce in a different country, so Helen and Tony (visiting us from England) enjoyed that part of the outing.

Nice to see my favorite Mexican beer at a great price in Walmart. 24 bottles of Pacifico for $21.97 USD ($28.60 CAD). Might have to go pick up another box before we leave here since Tony likes it as well.

Arrived in Palm Springs!

First order of business yesterday morning was to pick up our rental car. I had it booked at an Enterprise location about 3 miles (5 kms) away, but I had made a slight error and booked it for 12 noon. It was booked at a fantastic rate, and I tried to change the pickup time the day after I booked it but we would lose the great rate. So I left it booked for noon.

I called them to see if we could pick up early, and they said no...it wouldn't be ready until noon.

A nightmare of cars, buses, and taxis

Up early yesterday morning, and out for another hike just after 9:00am. A little shorter than the one the day before, but still a good workout before noon!

Lots of fun staying with Tamara and Mike, but you better be prepared to get some exercise! We've now hiked 18 miles (29 kms) over two days! Sure feels good to get back into it.

Los Angeles area is full of contrasts

What we learned yesterday is that the greater Los Angeles area is full of contrasts. They say that the area contains about 18.5 million people, and they must all own cars. And it seems that everybody is driving them all at the same time. There certainly is lots of traffic.

But while the traffic is hard to get away from, there are a lot of places in the greater metro area where you really do seem to be away from it even though it's always very close by.

We made it!

We were up yesterday morning at 6:00am, and got on the road right away. They were still calling for winds, but when we got up it was fairly calm. So we got a solid two hour drive in before we stopped for breakfast just outside of Palm Springs.

This was the last of our long driving days. We've now done 1,800 miles (3,000 kms) over the last two weeks since we left central Mexico.

Back to boondocking!

Not a very fun drive yesterday. We don't enjoy traveling on the Interstate highways to begin with, and that whole route from Phoenix area to the California border on the I-10 is quite simply...boring.

Add to that a strong crosswind that got worse as the day progressed. But still, we made it to our planned destination for the night.

No Mexico for us next year!

Woke up yesterday morning, and moved the motorhome to a nearby Safeway grocery store parking lot. We had been parked in a church lot, but of course Easter Sunday means that most churches would be busy.

Then, we went in to do some grocery shopping. Yikes!

What a perfect day we had

Slept just fine in the church parking lot. Grace came over and picked us up around 10:00am. We were parked only a couple of miles from her and Steve's house.

It was nice to have a rest day without any driving. We've been missing out on getting some regular exercise, so we had a hike planned for the afternoon. But first, Ruth had a job to do...