Meandering on the Way — April 27 to May 4, 2024

Saturday, April 27th

Up at 4:15 A.M. and out of the house by 4:45. It was still dark of course and we don’t really like to drive at night; but with hardly any traffic, it wasn’t so bad. We were at the Eugene airport by 5:30. American Airlines took us first to Phoenix and thence to Palm Springs. There we picked up a rental car and made the one hour drive to the town of Joshua Tree, which is located near the west entrance to Joshua Tree National Park.

On the way we stopped at a supermarket and got a couple of tamales for lunch. E was pleased to find a vegetarian tamale; M went for chicken. Both were quite good. Later on, we had plenty of time to get into our Vrbo house and visit another grocery store for supplies. The house was in a development just west of the town. The orange circle in the satellite photo below marks the location of our temporary home.

We had dinner at home. E baked a couple of Gorton’s frozen salmon squares and M sautéed a skillet full of potatoes, peppers and squash. After dinner we took a walk around the neighborhood and admired the western skyline after the sun went down. A treat for us rain forest dwellers.

Sunday, April 28th

Today we visited two places in the western part of the park: Hidden Valley and Barker Dam. The weather was pretty nice with temperatures in the seventies. On the other hand, The sun beats down all day, the air is very dry, and there is always a breeze, so you need a lot of water. Also, we were at about 4,000 feet, not an altitude we’re used to. We ended up walking only about three miles in all. But what lovely miles they were!

There are also a lot of rocks in this part of the park…and by that we mean one helluva lot of rocks.

For Sunday dinner, we went back to a supermarket deli thinking to get more of those good tamales. But then E saw that they also had chile rellenos, a vegetarian dish and one of her favorite Mexican things. Alas, when we sat down to supper, the relleno turned out to be a little different from the ones in Oregon. This one was very spicy, too hot for her to handle. Fortunately, we had some other stuff around. If memories serve, she fashioned herself a sandwich out of some peanut butter we found in the fridge.

Monday, April 29th

It was time to pack up and say goodbye to the Vrbo place. For the next two days we’d be staying at a Fairfield Inn down the road in the town of Twentynine Palms. But first we had to visit Indian Cove, a relatively small area in the northernmost part of the park. Indian Cove is separated from the rest of the park by some miles of rugged terrain, so it has its own entrance. It turned out to be quite lovely with lots of flowers and a nice self-guided nature trail.

When you first look at Joshua Tree, you know right away you’re in a desert. The whole thing is just really dry, with a hot sun bearing down from an utterly cloudless sky. But in fact there are variations in that dryness that have a powerful effect on plant life. In the photo below you can see that a crease in the rocky hillside collects a bit of extra moisture that is then exploited by certain plant species, species that could not survive in the open areas just a few meters away.

More subtle variations also have a part in determining which plants grow where. There are a surprising number of different plants and lots of them were in bloom.

As for animal life, during our trip we saw one rabbit, several tiny ground squirrels, two giant gray squirrels, lots of birds, and many, many lizards.

After our walk at Indian Cove we went to the park visitor center in Twentynine Palms. Besides maps and t-shirts and puzzles, there was a great deal of information about the native groups that lived in the area prior to the Euro-American invasion. There was also the following, which E found on a subsequent visit to this same center:

At 3:00 we checked into the Twentynine Palms Marriot Fairfield Inn, which is very nice. (Those Vrbo/AirBnB things are all well and good, but for comfort it’s hard to beat a good hotel!) For dinner we went to a restaurant called Thai Cafe. It was unprepossessing, as they used to say, but it was really good.

Tuesday, April 30th

Today we started out by driving into Twentynine Palms and turning south on a road called Utah Trail, which leads to the northeast entrance of the park. Once inside, we turned left on a road that leads to the south. Our first stop was for a hike to Arch Rock.

Next we drove south into the part of the park where the Mojave Desert transitions into the Colorado Desert. There were no Joshua trees in the landscape, but we did reach an area where we found ourselves surrounded by Cholla cactus. They call it Cholla Garden.

And then we made our last expedition, a place where there was little walking involved. We drove to a high place called Keys View.

Wednesday, May 1st

Time to go back to Oregon. Our flight wasn’t scheduled to leave till 1:05, so we had a fairly relaxed morning even though the Palm Springs Airport is airport is an hour and a half away from Twentynine Palms. We got to the airport early, so by the time we turned in the rental car, checked our bags and went through security it was only 11:35 or so. We had a coffee and shared a croissant, then went out to the gate area and sat down to wait. After a bit, we got a text from American Airlines: our 1:05 flight to Phoenix would be delayed until 1:20. So, a fifteen minute delay, hardly worth mentioning, Then we got another text. The flight was now delayed till 1:40. Hmm. Twenty more minutes. Still, that would not be a problem for our connecting flight from Phoenix to Eugene, which didn’t leave till 4:45. Then another text: the flight to Phoenix was now delayed until 9:27 p.m.. 9:27? That can’t be right, said E. I know what you mean, said M, but I think maybe it is.

So we headed back out down the Sonny Bono Concourse, past security and back to the American ticket counter. The line there was short; there were only three people in front of us. But there was only one agent, so it took a while. When we got to the head of the line–when it was almost our turn–we happened to look behind us. Yo! There was a huge mass of people behind us, none of them looking particularly happy.

Eventually a very nice agent was able to reroute us onto Alaska. We would fly from Palm Springs to Seattle and then from Seattle to Eugene. The Seattle plane didn’t leave Palm Springs until 5:55, so we would be arriving very late in Eugene. But we would be arriving.

And so, four hours later, off we flew toward Seattle. We saw some lovely Sierra Nevada Mountains scenery out the window. About halfway through the flight there was an announcement asking if there was a doctor on board. It appeared that one of the passengers “wasn’t feeling well.” A little while later–quite possibly at the very moment that our plane was flying over the town of Eugene on its way north to Seattle–we were informed that the plane would be making a medical emergency landing in Portland. Well. We’d never experienced that before. But now we have. Once we landed, we found two ambulances and a fire engine waiting for us–all with lights aflashing. So, did we ever make to Seattle? Were we in time to make our connection to Eugene? Yes and yes. We were a little tired though.

It had all seemed so simple that morning.

Thursday, May 2nd

We arrived in Eugene around 12:30 A.M. After half an hour spent talking to people about where our two suitcases might be, we went out into the pouring rain, got into the truck and headed home.

On Thursday morning the rain stopped for a few hours, so M went out to cut the lawn, which seemed to have grown an inch a day while we were gone.

Our bags arrived in Corvallis just before dinnertime.

Friday and Saturday, May 3-4

Rain rain rain. On Saturday E did some sorting and decluttering inside. We made some hard decisions about what we could stand to get rid of. E then took a bunch of things to the Humane Society Thrift Shop. Very satisfying.

Sunday and Monday, Mar 5-6

Weatherwise, it was still kind of damp. On Monday E defrosted the garage freezer while M stayed mostly in bed with a cold.