Scenic Road Travel

After driving along the east side of the Salton Sea, we turned right at Mecca, CA onto a small scenic road. We are starting to see more and more irrigated crops that paint such a pretty picture in the desert climate...date palms, oranges, grapefruit, vineyards, strawberries...

The road wound around through Box Canyon to Interstate 10. We crossed over and found a BLM campsite just south of Joshua Tree National Park. There were a lot of others camping here already, but it was still private. Riley set to work sawing a limb off a dead tree for firewood.  Then he decided to enlarge the fire ring. The rest of us helped, watched, and relaxed. Several tenting families came in at dusk and asked where we had gotten our wood, so we sawed some more for them. They had come from Joshua Tree where all campgrounds were full. One mom was from Spain -very heavy accent - She said they were on school break for Easter. There were a couple boys Riley's age and 4 Caroline's. Our children were so glad to see and play with others their age.

We had our fresh picked red beets with black bean burritos for supper. Then, since we had a fire, roasted marshmallows to eat on peanut buttered graham crackers.

We could see the glow of Los Angeles' lights coming over the Little San Bernardino Mountains. And there was a steady stream of traffic on I-10. But it was still a peaceful spot in the Mojave Desert.

The next morning Caroline picked beautiful blooming flowers!