WOW Ride!

March 11, 2021 WOW Ride!

Kelso Dunes Mojave National Preserve Kelso, California

When we got up this morning it was chilly…inside the RV and out. The temperature had plummeted into the upper thirties overnight. Without hookups, we ran the furnace on propane and set it at 64 degrees. We didn’t want to disturb our neighbors more than absolutely necessary by running the generator for an extended time. Tim had the idea to drive for a while and then to stop for my walk and his morning exercise as the day got warmer. This turned out to be a terrific idea. We drove through Joshua Tree Park in the early morning light with few other cars on the road.

Good morning!

We sat up in our perches, watching the world come to us through our picture window. The play of clouds and sunshine was stunning today. We crossed from the Colorado Desert into the Mojave Desert.

We parked at the Twin Tanks Trailhead. I walked for two miles on the Geology Tour Road, a gradual ascent into Queens Valley. Then I turned back to the RV. I really didn’t want to stop. It was peaceful and quiet. I saw ground squirrels, jackrabbits, and other small rodents. These animals are at the very bottom of the desert food chain. I read the other day that packrats can have up to 11 litters of baby packrats each year. This is necessary to keep the larger predators like coyote and bobcats well-fed. The mountain lions don’t come down to the desert floor very often. They prefer larger meals like bighorns and deer that live at higher elevations. Along the trail there was a lot of evidence of very active animal presence. Lots of scat, burrows, rabbit warrens, and holes gouged out of the earth during hunting sprees.

We drove out of the park and toward Amboy. The clouds casting shadows on the mountains and the colors and the light…all so beautiful.

This is our first glimpse of the Amboy Crater with salt flats in the foreground.

This is an extinct volcano that last erupted 10,000 years ago. We parked the RV and took the hike to the rim of the crater. It was cloudy and a little chilly…perfect for this hike. It is apparently very hot here as temperatures soar. The black lava rock holds heat and hiking here can be dangerous…but not today…we even had sprinkles of rain.

It was one mile to the base of the crater. We then had to follow a series of switchbacks to get to the top. I wanted to see the inside of the cone. I wasn’t sure what I expected…the volcano has been dormant for 10,000 years. The inside had fallen in on itself and there was a layer of sand on top. I am still glad we hiked it. We stood inside a volcano today!