Day 12 - Joshua Tree CA to Lake Forest CA

This was another picture perfect day. Weather was completely clear and temps into the 70's. Since we were staying in Joshua Tree, it only made sense to visit the Joshua Tree National Park. It is a fairly large park - covering about 1200 square miles; it is larger than the state of Rhode Island. And it has thousands of Joshua Trees.

As you would expect, the park is full of Joshua trees. They are one of the fastest growing desert trees - close to 3" per year for seedlings under the right circumstances.

You can tell we are near some population centers because the park was filling up. Most appeared to be coming to climb the large boulders. If you look closely on the picture below, you will see a few people climbing.

The sky is so clear, and it so quiet up here. The rain from two days ago is starting to make some changes. While it looks so dry (being a desert and all), the soil was still damp.

From Joshua Tree, we began the descent on the roads we climbed last night.  We put the car in neutral and could coast down at 75mph. We hopped on I-10 and headed into the Los Angeles sprawl.  Like Texas, everyone here is in a big hurry. We hit some traffic that brought us to a standstill - and it was a Sunday. At one point, we were on a freeway with seven lanes all going in one direction.  

We were on our way to visit our friend Gus in Lake Forest, which is near Irvine (south of LA). The sprawl eventually gives way to beautiful mountains - all green from the recent rains.  Gus lives in a great community that seems so different from everything we've seen on the way.  We arrived just in time to see the Super Bowl, and Gus had a spread laid out for us.

This is as far west as we are traveling. We could drive a few miles more to see the Pacific, but we want to get back to Palm Springs tomorrow.