Ogilby Rd to Joshua Tree NP

We're on the road again today. We had decided to head to Borrego Springs for a few days, but on the way there changed our minds and went to Joshua Tree National Park instead. It's President's Day weekend, and we expect that Borrego Springs will be quite busy. In hindsight I think we made the wrong decision!

In the morning light, the hills to the east of where we had camped the past 3 days didn’t look real:

The ocotillo plants are starting to bloom. Most of the year these plants look like a bundle of dry dead sticks:

The desert is greening up, subtle but there:

Awesome hills showing up from under the morning fog:

The gravel on the shoulder of the road was pretty soft after the recent rains:

We drove through an area called the Imperial Sand Dunes. It's a playground for dune buggies etc, especially on this long weekend:

On our way past the Salton Sea, our elevation got a little low. Notice the Minus sign:

The shoreline of the Salton Sea. As the name implies, it's very salty water:

There are State campgrounds right on the shoreline.

The fog came back, so we had a stop at the Brawley McDonalds for some breakfast and to wait for it to clear up some. Visibility was poor, not really unsafe for driving but it did interfere with sightseeing.

We stopped at a Date Gardens store on hwy 86 near Coachella, a real oasis where they sell an amazing variety of date types. They had an assortment of date varieties set out for taste test, which we enjoyed.

Our GPS got quite confused around Indio, taking us in a complete useless circle around a block. We eventually figured out how to reach an Arco station for a fuel fillup though, then headed east out of Indio for Joshua Tree NP.

As we sort of expected, there were no campground vacancies in the Park, so we headed back out the south end of the park to a boondocking area there. It’s BLM land, free camping but no services. We're lucky to have that option.

We knew about this area because of another blog we’ve been following, and ended up camping near Doug and his doggy pal Yuma:

It’s almost like this is a serviced area for us. With our annual US National Parks pass, we can go back in to Joshua Tree NP for free anytime, and use the facilities (dump station, water, washrooms) at the Cottonwood Springs campground just inside the park, even though no sites were available there.