A Rough Weekend of Hiking!

It's great to have an internet connection because we can update our blog on a regular basis. On Saturday we drove up to Joshua Tree National Park. We hiked the Skull Rock Trail. There are some amazing rock formations in the park.

Here we used the self-time feature of the camera. The top of our hiking sticks come off and can act as camera stand, cool feature we found by accident!



Yesterday we finally made it to the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. We had planned to go there the last time we were here, but we got sick instead. It was very warm 77 (25C) at the bottom, but it was a chilly 58 at the top, a quick 2.5 mile trip. What's cool is that the tram car floor rotates, so everyone gets a view of the valley floor, or the mountain above.



Once we got to the top we were at over 8500' above sea level. The air was crisp and chilly. There were several hiking trails to choose from, but only two could be taken without getting a wilderness permit. We chose the Desert View trail, which is 1.5 miles long. When we were half-way through, we came upon a group that had just climbed the mountain, a 5.5 mile trek up that took them 8 hours. Wow! The great thing about the trail we took was that it had many vistas from which to look down and see the valley floor.


Later that evening we hung out with Rick, Susan, and Helen. Rick had just returned from a day of watching a NASCAR race. Susan was making a vegetarian curry, which I got to try and found to be quite tasty. They made me try a naturally sweetened (fruit, not sugar) peanut butter cookie. What a rough life I lead!

Today, we will make our way down to San Diego for the next week. Looking forward to visiting the Temecula Valley wine region and the zoo! Look for updates soon!



BTW, that rock that rock over my shoulder that looks like it could squish me any minute, probably could have! It was literally perched on top of that rock, you could have pushed it over with the help of a few people!