Day 15 - Second Day in Palm Springs with Visits to Joshua Tree National Park and the Purple Room

This is the start of the third week of our cross-country trip from Maine to California and back in our Volvo XC-70 station wagon. We are currently staying four nights in Palm Springs, CA, and today is our second day here. We've been doing a lot of driving... well Shane has been doing all the driving and I've been doing all the riding. The plan was to stay put and relax today. We did sleep in a bit, but during breakfast we decide since it was a little cloudy and cooler today, it might be a good day to go to Joshua Tree National Park. We imagined it would be warm there. So that is what we did. 

 Finally, we got going and made it to the north side of the park. I imagined the trip from Palm Springs would be just take a couple hours and we would be back fast, but that is not the case. It took just an hour to get to the entrance. Then we did a short hike at Hidden Valley Trail and drove to Key's View to see the San Andres Fault. However, this is a very large park and we drove through the length of it entirely. Then it took us another hour to get home after we got to the south side. Suffice to say, we were in the car a long time again. It was worth it though. It is like no place else. We imagined that whenever they filmed an episode of Star Trek where they went to an alien planet, this is where they filmed it.

Our silver Volvo in an episode of Star Trek.

Shane beside a Joshua Tree in Joshua Tree National Park.

 The following photos are from in and around the Hidden Valley Trail at Joshua Tree. 

 

 

These next two shots are from the Key's View. It was hazy today, so the distant views are not great. 

The ridge that runs horizontally through the middle of this photo is the San Andres Fault.  

Not sure how that rock got up there.

We got back later than we had hoped, but managed to relax a bit with a light late lunch. We lounged in the backyard. I took a dip in the pool and then we got ready to go out to dinner. We went to the Purple Room in Palm Springs and listened to the vocal jazz stylings of Rose Mallett. She was wonderful! We got a great table right up front. If you are ever in Palm Springs on a Tuesday, I highly recommend hearing her. We had a great dinner and it was a very nice evening. She even sang some Nina Simone, which we loved.

Day 3 - Meet Me In St. Louis, Louie!

View from Malcolm W. Martin Memorial Park on the Illinois side of the Mississippi,

Today we traveled from Columbus, OH, to St. Louis, MO, via Indiana and Illinois. We have lucked out with the weather, though it is pretty cold. It was snowy during the drive here, but it did not accumulate on the road. There was worse snow just north of us. 

We arrived in St. Louis around 3 p.m. after a delicious breakfast at the Waffle House, earlier in the day and checked into our hotel (The Holiday Inn in downtown St. Louis). We then walked over to the iconic St. Louis Arch National Park site. We took the tram ride to the top of the Arch, which did not sit well with Shane. You sit in this enclosed, small pod that rocks a bit during the 4 minute ride to the top. It made him a bit motion sick, but not too bad luckily. 

The views out of the top of the Arch are very cool. Also, there is a nice museum as part of the National Park Service site. Very Interesting. It is all about St. Louis as the gateway to the West. 

Tomorrow, we head to Kansas City, MO, home of the Super Ball winning Chiefs. We will be staying with Shane's step-bro Trent and his wife Laurie for the weekend. Trent, an amazing trumpeter, has a gig with Michael Feinstein Sunday night, which we will be attending... Can't wait. Below are more pics from the Arch.

Shane enters the St. Louis Arch tram pod #1.

It is tiny inside the tram... Luckily it was just Shane and I in our pod.

At the top of the Arch, Shane takes a picture out of the small windows.  

View from the top of the Arch. 

View showing the baseball stadium on the left.