< more recent | 23 – 29 February 2020 | older >
29 February 2020: Looped around Anza Borrego and the TDS event in the morning before beginning the route to Moab. Made a late afternoon stop at Glamis and eventually paused for the night in Wickenburg AZ …
28 February 2020: Long drive day today down to the Anza Borrego area for the Tierra del Sol Desert Safari event. Made a late lunch stop in Palms Springs then hit the registration and vendor show just before sunset. Got to see a few friends in the evening too …
27 February 2020: A final day in the 29 Palms area and went back to Joshua Tree for another walk in the park, this time taking the short Arch Rock trail to an otherworldly boulder landscape with a rock arch in the middle of it …
26 February 2020: Found some solitude out on the trail at Joshua Tree today by taking the Geology Road 4×4 trail away from the crowds and out into the surreal landscape full of boulders and bunny rabbits — well mostly jackrabbits really — and got do practice some tracking and observation along the way…
25 February 2020: Hung around the property at 29 Palms today, checking out some of the homemade trails that wind along the sandy desert hill near Chocolate Drop …
24 February 2020: Spent some time exploring around the Hidden Valley area of Joshua Tree National Park and enjoyed the surreal landscapes defined by the spiky trees and huge boulders everywhere …
23 February 2020: Arrived back in Las Vegas and hit the road directly on a nice scenic route through the Mojave National Preserve that included a bit of Route 66. Joshua trees, sand dunes and sunset on the way to 29 Palms …
THIS MONTH:
The original Team USnomads is back together for some southwest exploration around Nevada, Arizona and Southern California. Inspired by some of the Rebelle Rally routes, the team is taking some time to just appreciate the journey with time to stop and revisit intriguing locations or discover some new places to explore…
COMING UP SOON:
Tierra del Sol’s 58th annual Desert Safari at Ocotillo Wells from February 28th to March 1st. The event is one of the biggest Jeep events of its kind and the proceeds go towards the fight to keep Public Lands open. …
A short stop in Moab for some classic red rock trail time…
Roadtrip across the country from west to east back to New York…
Joining the Texas Rovers for their annual South Central Area Rover Rally (SCARR). SCARR is a four-day event geared towards Land Rover enthusiasts that attracts people from all over the globe. SCARR attendees get to experience the off-road capabilities of Land Rovers in the beautiful setting of the Barnwell Mountain Recreation Area. Texas Rovers has reserved the entire 1,850-acre BMRA off-road park located in Gilmer, Texas for activities that include guided trail runs, lectures and off-road training, the ladies-only Barbara Toy trail run and much more…
ABOUT THE JOSHUA TREE
Joshua Trees, or more scientifically “yucca brevifolia” are a tree-like plant species belonging to the genus Yucca. It is native to the arid southwestern United States, specifically California, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada, where it is confined mostly to the Mojave Desert between elevations of 1,300 and 5,900 feet. The Joshua Tree has barely any leaves, just a few balls on the edges. The trunk consists of thousands of small fibers and lacks annual growth rings, making determining the tree’s age difficult. The evergreen leaves are dark green, linear, bayonet-shaped, 15–35 cm long and 7–15 mm broad at the base, tapering to a sharp point; they are borne in a dense spiral arrangement at the apex of the stems. The tree has a top-heavy branch system and a “deep and extensive” root system. The tallest trees reach about 49 ft. Joshua trees are fast growers for the desert — new seedlings may grow at an average rate of 3 inches per year in their first 10 years and can live for hundreds of years.
JOSHUA TREE NP
Joshua Tree National Park in southeastern California, east of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, near Palm Springs, is named for the Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia) native to the Mojave Desert. Two distinct desert ecosystems, the Mojave and the Colorado, come together in Joshua Tree National Park. A fascinating variety of plants and animals make their homes in a land sculpted by strong winds and occasional torrents of rain. Dark night skies, a rich cultural history, and surreal geologic features add to the wonder of this vast wilderness in southern California. Joshua trees dominate the open spaces of the park, but in addition to Joshua tree forests, the western part of the park includes some of the most interesting geologic displays found in California’s deserts. The rock formations of Joshua Tree National Park owe their shape partly to groundwater, which filtered through the roughly rectangular joints of the monzonite and eroded the corners and edges of blocks of stone, and to flash floods, which washed away covering ground and left piles of rounded boulders. These prominent outcrops are known as inselbergs. The paved main road allows visitors to drive to major attractions and through the park. The unpaved roads may require a vehicle with high ground clearance, and four-wheel drive. An example is the Geology Tour Road in the center of the park. Visitors with a four-wheel drive vehicle can use this road for a self-guided tour with stops that describe the region’s geology.
Nesconset | Paris | Danville PA | Akron OH | Toledo OH | South Bend IN | Oglesby IL | Davenport IA | Des Moines IA | Omaha NE | North Platte NE | Denver CO | Grand Junction CO | Moab UT | Hurricane UT | Mesquite NV | Valley of Fire NV | Lake Mead NV | Las Vegas NV | Death Valley CA | Trona CA | Laughlin NV | Sedona AZ | Phoenix AZ | Yuma AZ
MORE NOTES FROM THE ROAD:
15-22 February – Southwest Roadtrip
8-14 February – Southwest Roadtrip
1-7 February – Glamis to Vegas
27-31 January – Yuma to Glamis
15-26 January – Nevada to Arizona
1-14 January – Starting the New Year
24-31 December – Holidays on the Road
16-23 December – Cross-Country Drive
9-15 December – New York
1-8 December – Paris
16-30 November – Paris & Rennes
1-15 November – New York
14-31 October – Arizona
8-13 October – LON TOP TEN
1-7 October – Girl Gang Garage
16-30 September – Women’s Wheeling
1-15 September – Long Island
9-31 August – Serbia
1-8 August – #LONCON2019
16-31 July – Roadtrip to Atlanta
1-15 July – Cape Cod
15-30 June – Eastern Long Island
1-14 June – Bantam Jeep Festival
May – PA Trail cleanup
22-30 April – Minnesota
16-21 April – PA Trails
1-15 April – New Jeep
15-31 March – Paris
1-14 March – Arizona
Archive
REFLECTIONS
A quick overview of impressions from a stop in Cairo during our recent scouting mission in Egypt and Sudan … [read]
SPECIAL REPORT
A look into south-eastern Algeria on the border with Libya and Niger: overlanding with the Tuareg in one of the most remote corners of the Sahara … [read]
