Back in the desert - I hate the desert. I can survive here, but I could not thrive here. A long day of beautiful roads winding and turning their way into the flats; and I finally get to the California line.
And do you know what they do there? They stop all traffic, right at the border, and ask if I have nuts. No, sir, I do not. (You are not getting my Georgia Pecans, you bastards!)
I understand the peril of native species at the hands of the introduced variety, and I promise to be very careful with my nuts, and burn them if they start to go downhill... but I will NOT hand them over, they cost a pretty penny and sleep-loss when I was back in the South.
So anyway, welcome to California; first stop, Joshua Tree.
$25 entrance fee, $15 camping fee, and at the end, next to the sign that says "keep dehydrated!" $.25 for water. All for this:
Which is nice, I guess. But I'm totally done with the desert.
Oh, there were also big piles of rocks that look like someone had dumped them there. Gotta love geologic history!
And some pretty-ness. I guess. For the desert.
I've made contact! Finally, I arrived in Dana Point, California. The waters of the Pacific are freezing, so I didn't get to jump-right-in and enjoy, but, driving around Orange County, I can totally understand why people pay millions of dollars for homes on mudslides. It's still the desert, I can tell, but it has been painted over as some grand get-away. I look forward to forests, but in the meantime, I'm headed to Santa Monica for some rest, and to get an idea of LA County.
Squirrel! ...big squirrel...
