Day 18 - Traveling Back East Via El Paso, Texas

Today was not a fun vacation day for Mark and Shane. It is Day 18 of our cross-country trip, and it was our first long drive toward the east. This was really the first leg of a long way back. It is a bit daunting. We left Palm Springs, Calif., this morning around 8 a.m. and we made it to El Paso, Texas, around 7 p.m. We drove through western California, the entire state of Arizona, the entire state of New Mexico and into Texas. It was about 10 long hours of driving, and we lost an hour by going east from Pacific time to Mountain time.

Today's route from Palm Springs to El Paso via Interstate 10.

There are some beautiful mountains and deserts we drove through today. I love the giant cacti driving through Arizona. We passed time by listening to music and to an audio book. Today we started David Sedaris's book, Theft by Finding, which is his diaries from 1977 to 2002. It is about 14 hour long, and we listened to more than 5 hours today. I does make the trip go faster.

Below are some of the scenery we got to see on our drive.  All these shots were taken from the car along the way today.

Just of a few of the countless large cacti in the desert along I-10 in Arizona.

The flat valley of the eastern part of Arizona has scenic mountains all around.

This was on the opposite side of the highway as the mountains shown above this photo. 

These rocky features were in Western New Mexico I think... it kind of runs together in my mind. 

One of the worst things about driving across the country is the pebbles hitting our windshield. Every so often we hear something hit the windshield and then we scan to see if there is damage that needs to be repaired. We already had to make one stop in Kansas on our way west. We had several scares today, but so far so good. Our car as a really expensive windshield and getting it replaced, which we already had to do once before this trip, is a royal pain. 

Another interesting thing we saw on our trip today were small brush fires along the highway in eastern Arizona. I could understand seeing one or maybe two, but we say six or seven small fires along the road, which made me wonder why there were so many separate fires all within several miles of each other. 

We stopped to eat fast food for breakfast and lunch and then checked into a Holiday Inn outside of El Paso and had dinner in their restaurant. To offset the fast food we did have salads for dinner. 

Tomorrow, we have more driving to do. The plan is to go deep into Texas and get to San Antonio tomorrow. which should take about 8 hours. Stay tuned.

Day 17 - Last Full Day In Palm Springs

This is day #17 of our trip across the USA and we are enjoying our last full day in Palm Springs. We started out from our home in Stonington, Maine on February 4 and traveled in our station wagon to the Pacific Ocean (Day 13). On our way back East, we stopped in Palm Springs for 4 nights. Today, we have done even less than we did yesterday, but we are having a nice break from driving in the car. I did manage to get out for a bit to get my hair cut. It was looking too much like a toupée.

Our days of relaxation come to an end tomorrow, as we have to get up early and head further east. Our goal is El Paso, Texas, which is about a 10 hour drive. Tonight we have to do some laundry, repack (so nice not having to dig clothes out of a suitcase), and load up the car. Think we will just get a pizza for dinner.

This is a shot from our webcam pointing out the front window of our house in Stonington, Maine.
I was missing our view early this morning. It is nice to be able to see a live shot from the phone.
What I don't miss is that the low tonight is going to be 8 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Before and 

After

Shane in the backyard of our Palm Springs rental with a post-sunset sky.

Day 16 - Relaxing Day Around the Pool

This is going to be a shorter post than I have been doing on this trip as we are having a down day. We mostly stayed in our rented home in Palm Springs and relaxed most of the day... laying by the pool, reading and eating snacks. We did get up a little gumption late in the afternoon and played a couple sets of tennis. We came back, had a quick dip in the pool, and then got ready to go out to dinner. We have learned you need to make reservations here. We didn't make a reservation tonight and just walked around until we found something that looked good that could seat us. We ended up eating Italian again and sat outside near a very loud and not great Latina singer. It wasn't the best. Anyway, it was a beautiful day. The weather can't be beat here.

I finished the book I was reading(Everything Is Awful and You're a Terrible Person by Daniel Zomparelli) and I am glad it is finished. Not my favorite read. Tedious. Starting a new book called What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell. Hope it is better. Shane is reading the sequel to Olive Kitteridge called Olive, Again by Elizabeth Stout. I want to read that one too.

Here are also few closer shots of the plants in the backyard. We are getting to see lots of hummingbirds here. They come right up at you. They don't seem as skittish as the hummingbirds in Maine. 

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.