The Sunny Life

I hope everyones holiday was fantastic and everyone got what they wanted for Christmas. Renee and I did struggle with presents for each other. One, because it’s hard to shop when that person is with you twenty four seven, two, we both have everything we need and three, it would have to be something small because of our living arrangements. We did talk about it and decided to keep it low key and because what we are dong is a gift in its self.

As you know from my previous post we spent a month in the Palm Springs area. It was a blast. I certainly got my fair share of exercise with all the pickle ball we played. We met amazing people whom were more then happy to help us improve our game. Many laughs were had by all, and my game did improve.

While in Palm Springs we spent a day at Joshua Tree National park.

It was so much more than I expected. This is where two deserts meet. The Mojave and Colorado desert. The park is named for the Joshua tree that is native to the Mojave dessert. The park has 429,690 acres of designated wilderness. We saw only a fraction of what the park has to offer.

We had seen so many variety of cacti in the park. Depending if you were in the high desert (Mojave) or the low desert (Colorado). As we were driving and admiring all of the desert plant species I also saw piles upon piles of very large rocks that were piled on top of each other. I did find some history about them.

The details are: The pile of rocks started from underground long, long time ago from the result of volcanic activity. I won’t bore you with the details but eventually the surface soil eroded leaving heaps of rock called monzogranite scattered across the land. The last picture is of a small piece of snow that had not melted yet from the snow fall the week prior to us being there. I was excited to see some snow 🙂

I loved the Joshua Tree, they can become so large and yet so beautiful. To me they stand so majestic in the desert. Along with the picture of the Joshua tree are other cacti we saw.

The end came in Palm Springs, we said goodbye to the friends we met and moved on to Lake Havasu Arizona. We had heard good things about visiting there. We stayed in Parker Ca. The park we chose we were not impressed with at all. Very cramped quarters and what you got for your money was little to nothing. We made the best of it by leaving daily to visit the sights. (that is what our journey is all about anyway 🙂 The first thing we did was go into Lake Havau City and saw the London Bridge. For some of you who might not know this is the original bridge from London England.

The bridge was built in London England in 1831, in 1962 the bridge was not deemed safe for traffic. It was purchased by a man from Lake Havasu who then had it dismantled and rebuilt in Lake Havasu. He wanted to promote tourism in this area. It sure did work. The fourth picture is locks that people put there with the initials of them and their loved one and then lock it to the fence.

The lake Havasu area also had great hiking trails. We hiked one of the most scenic trails and is to be the most famous slot canyons on the lower Colorado. It is called the” Crack “in the wall trail also known as Sara Crack. It is a 5 mile round trip hike that takes you through various desert land scapes including a narrow ravine and I mean narrow. For those of you that know me, I am claustrophobic and when I saw what I was getting into I was really close to going back. Fortunately Renee talked me into going through the canyon and I did just that. We had to climb over huge huge boulders, through very and I mean very narrow cracks. I even had to propel down a rope. I wouldn’t let Renee take a picture of me being so graceful, trust me I wasn’t 🙂

After getting through the crack we tracked about another mile up the mountain but the end was gorgeous. The lake was enclosed by the mountain and so peaceful to see. We had lunch there and our visitors had lunch with us too. A duck came up to Renee and took a piece of bread out of her hand.

We took a different way up the mountain to get back to our truck. Much much easier for me but again up and over the mountain to get to the other side. Fun was had by all though.

The picture below is deceiving, the crack is much longer and deeper then the picture lol

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As always thank you for taking time to view the photos and blog. Namaste

“Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.” Stephen Hawking