After the city sight-seeing in San Diego, we moved on for several days to a place called Desert Hot Springs, a small town located in the desert close to Palm Springs and Joshua Tree National Park. It is also at the base of pretty spectacular snow-capped mountains directly to the west and a beautiful view from our campground with lots of sunshine and blue skies.
We spent most of our days hiking in Joshua Tree which is a combination of desert with “forests” of Joshua trees, rugged rock formations, and mountains. Our commutes into the different park entrances were gorgeous with interesting vistas everywhere you looked. The rock formations we fascinating and there were a lot of serious rock climbers. The area where you can find the unique Joshua Trees doesn’t extend very far outside the park. The entire area almost has an “alien” feel to it.
We also drove through the nearby (out west-anything less than 50 miles away is “nearby”) town of 29 Palms which is where I was born and still the site of a Marine Corps base. We made our way to Palms Springs and, as expected, found it to be pretty pricey, we did enjoy walking around window shopping and had lunch outside on a café patio!
Our campground had some interesting features…it had 3 very large in-ground hot tubs that were fed by the hot, mineral springs. They were at 3 different temps: 98, 100, and 104 degrees and were a gathering place thoughout the day and evening. The pool which was also fed by the hot springs was probably 85 degrees so even in the coolest weather the pool also felt like a warm bath. I’m not sure that the mineral springs did anything for my age related aches, I did LOVE spending time in the pool and hot tubs. I read more than one book in the water and also met a lot of interesting folks from around the country while soaking, sunning or swimming and picked up some traveling recommendations from others. A pretty low-key, relaxing week…what else could you ask for!
SEB
