the Mohave Desert

Bruce woke up early this morning (are you seeing a pattern here?) so he & Harvey headed out around 6:30 while I was still in bed. Another advantage of going Harvey-style. He nixed my I-80 plan in favor of going south and catching I-70 earlier. We still get to go through Nevada and Utah, but not Wyoming. We drove down to Bakersfield and then headed east. Once I was up and had my coffee, I drove for a bit. Such a variety of terrain again today. Started out with fruit farms and then went to fields. Some of these fields had giant boulders randomly on them, like maybe they just fell off a mountain somewhere and landed there.

Pretty soon it became more hilly and then desert-y. And then I saw them … Joshua trees! Which made sense because we WERE going through the Mohave Desert. I was so excited. I pulled over and we got out to take a picture with a REAL Joshua tree. As I was traipsing through the desert –doesn’t that sound adventurous “traipsing THROUGH THE DESERT” — the thought did enter my mind that this might possibly be a place where rattlesnakes hang out. How is it that I have been in so many rattlesnake ghettos these past couple weeks? Pretty sure I haven’t even thought about snakes that much in the prior 50 years! So we took the pictures, jumped back in Harvey and headed east through the Mohave Desert. For the next 7 hours. Joshua trees scattered everywhere. I guess that should be expected since the Mohave Desert covers almost 50,000 square miles. And the boundaries of the Mohave Desert are determined by whether Joshua Trees grow there or not.

We crossed into Nevada around 2:00. I’m not really sure how to count the states. When I said California was state number 9, that was only counting states we had biked through. Haha. Don’t you like how I said “we” had biked through. Pretty sure my hiney never sat in a bike saddle. So back to the states, we had actually passed through Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia on our way to Florida. So if you add Missouri, Arkansas & Tennessee, then Nevada is actually our 13th state. Ya follow?

Bruce was driving again at this point and apparently I slept through Las Vegas. And most of Nevada. I’m not sure if we passed through Area 51 but we certainly passed through Area 64.

We saw lots more rock mountains/formations. I guess I should learn what the proper name is for these. They are big like mountains, but I don’t think they count as mountains because they appear to be solid rock. It’s funny how all this nature is beautiful in it’s own way. I have never really considered rocks pretty. But these are. We took a million pictures. None of which actually captured the feel of it.

And oh my gosh, it was SO windy! 23 mile an hour gusts. I drove in it for several hours and then Bruce drove. He was telling me how windy it was. Um yeah. I just drove in it for 2 hours.

We crossed in to Utah around 6:30. State #14. We boondocked in a hotel parking lot in Cedar City. Somewhere along the line we left the heat of California and the Mohave. When we went to bed in Cedar City it was 21 degrees. I hadn’t packed anything warmer than a sweatshirt. Because it was supposed to always be in the 90s. Good thing Harvey is self-contained. And has a good heater.