For several years now we've taken a week's vacation in the middle of January - after the craziness of the Christmas holidays and Nativity. And we try to pick someplace warm and sunny. Other years have been big successes, as our trip to Big Sur, California and Big Bend in Texas.
But this year was different. The Thursday before we left, Andy came home from work announcing that he had really bad news. I couldn't imagine what could be so terrible until he said that the weather in California was going to be storm after storm for the whole week of our vacation. I wondered how bad could it be. After all, we were going to the desert side of California: Joshua Tree National Park, Mojave Desert & Death Valley.
He worked at canceling our plane tickets and rescheduling our trip to a different date, but ran into issues with hotel reservations that were not going to refund our money. So we decided to go anyway.
We left on Sunday, Jan. 17th. It was pouring rain here on the east coast and it was pouring rain on the west coast, too, when we arrived that evening. We got to our hotel after white knuckling it on the California freeways in pouring, driving rain in the dark with drivers who are crazier than NJ drivers (if you can believe that!).
On Monday morning we drove to Joshua Tree National Park. It was raining when we left the hotel, but as we got closer to the park, the rain stopped and we even saw some patches of blue sky. We were able to enjoy the park for several hours, even getting in some hiking, before it started raining again. The terrain in Joshua Tree is very unusual. The mountains look like giant piles of rocks just thrown around.
The Joshua trees and desert vegetation is so unique and interesting, so different to what we're used to in south Jersey. The Joshua tree isn't actually a tree, although it looks like it could be one. It belongs to the yucca family, so it's just a big cactus.
A Joshua tree "forest"
As you can see by the terrain, it is desert like. The Park Ranger told us it doesn't rain very much in these parks, but El Nino was bringing in the storms. We witnessed water pouring down gullies and alongs the sides of the streets with huge puddles in some of the streets. This is very unusual for this area.
On Tuesday, we left Joshua Tree and drove to the Mojave desert. The Mojave is a national preserve which is a different classification than a national park. The difference is that hunting is allowed in a preserve. People hunt mule deer and big horn sheep there. We drove most of the day, but did get in a good hike on the Teutonia Peak trail - a 3 mile round trip hike. We thought we were going to get rained on again, but made it back to the car without getting wet. It was pretty chilly and the wind was fierce. We were dressed warm enough, although Andy could have used a hat. I had a hood on my coat which helped me.
The terrain in the Mojave Desert is diverse and interesting. Some areas are nothing but scrub bushes, other areas have Joshua trees and other vegetation. There there are piles of rocks and mountains, as well as plains and flat lands, even some sand dunes (although not as many as you might expect when you think of a "desert").
View from the top
We made a stop at a ghost town where mining had been done in the 1800's - the town of Calico.
We still had plenty of time so decided to drive on over to Las Vegas, NV. We went into Harrah's Casino and walked around and through it, but didn't buy anything or even try the penny slots. I was amazed at how many people were there (in a supposed recession).
It rained most of the day on Wednesday, although it wasn't heavy enough to prevent our seeing and doing what we wanted. We drove a lot this day and made it to Death Valley. What an education that was! What comes to your mind when you think "Death Valley?" I thought it would be all sand dunes and hot and flat like a desert. But...Death Valley is the largest national park in the lower 48 states. It covers 5,000 square miles and is 150 miles long. It consists of snow covered mountains, painted canyons, sand dunes and salt flats. It is actually very beautiful and awe inspiring.
Here is a place we found along the road called Artists Drive. We were able to get out at one point and hike along a dried "river" bed. The cliffs were all different colors from different minerals in the rocks.
We also drove down to a section of the park called Badwater which is the lowest spot in Death Valley, as well as the whole US. It is 282 feet below sea level. As we drove toward it, from a distance it looked like we were driving toward a river, but when we got there, it was only salt flats with just a little tiny "pond."
That evening we stayed at the Amargosa Opera House Hotel. It was ancient, built in Spanish architecture style. There was a sky light in the bathroom - a novel idea - natural light in the bathroom. With all the rain, it was leaking significantly in the morning. After I got my shower and dried off, I needed to keep my towel handy because I kept getting dripped on.
On Thursday morning, it wasn't raining when we left the hotel, but we drove into another storm - the 4th in 4 days. We saw more sights and did a little more hiking before deciding to head on out of the park. On our way out of Death Valley, we crossed Towne Pass at 4,956 feet elevation. There the rain turned to snow and it was almost a white out up there. The mountains, as well as the vegetation were beautiful with all that snow, but driving was pretty nerve wracking. We thought we'd get down off the pass and out of the snow, but we never did. We drove through 50-60 miles of snow, around curves and over mountain passes, with the snow getting deeper and deeper. We both were really scared and praying earnestly!
Thankfully, we did make it out to Lone Pine, CA by about 4:00 pm. We found a Comfort Inn and felt very comforted and thankful to have made it. The people in this little town told us that just 20 miles down the road, there was no snow. The next morning (Friday), the sun was shining and everything was so beautiful. The roads going out of town had been scraped, but were snow and ice covered.
I took these pictures out the car window as we were driving along.
We had plenty of time to get to our hotel reserved for Friday evening, so decided to stop at several state parks along the way to get in some hiking. At the second park, we came across the Pacific Crest Trail which is supposed to be a west coast Appalachian Trail wanna be. It goes up and down the coast, but there are sections where it stops, then takes up again a little further on. We were on the trail for quite a while before we decided we better head back. We got to the car after hiking for about an hour and a half. As soon as we got inside the car, the heavens opened up and poured down rain. Wow...so glad we decided to turn around when we did. It was a beautiful hike, but thankful we didn't get wet.
We found some plants that were actually blooming, which just goes to prove that January isn't usually so cold for California.
We were told that the average rainfall for Death Valley is 2 inches a year. I think in this past week they got enough rain to last about 10 years! And we were there!
It was a good break to be away from our normal routine and duties. And we got to see and experience a lot in spite of the rain and snow. We both feel like we'd like to go back again some day.
Monopoly, monopoly, monopoly; oh, how I love you so. 
Sometimes the girls worked together at concocting a story or developing a play. And they also liked to involve neighbor kids and friends invited over from church on a Sunday afternoon. They also liked to use a typewriter I had at the time (in the days before computers). And how many plays did Andy and I get to watch through the years?! It warms a parent's heart to see her daughters working and playing together harmoniously and enjoying sisterly camaraderie.
