May 20th – Exploring the California Desert
Noah and Malachi decided to stay at my brothers house last night, so our California Desert exploring was just with our two littlest. It is crazy how different everything seems with only two kids, I don’t look forward to the day when the boys move out. One thing I can say after Ruth moved out is I always am reminded how fast they grow up and how I sometimes wish I could stop time alas time goes on. As much as I don’t want the kids grow up I also love watching them become their best person, I guess that is what life is about and my heart is full and proud of my children.
Alright back to the day at hand! We got the kids all fed and ready for the day of driving through the desert, well at this point we didn’t know it would be such a desert. It’s funny, because when I lived in Las Vegas I never did a lot of exploring. I had been to Palm Springs and Joshua Tree national park, but that was about it. It was really cool to get out and see all these areas I never heard of before. We started off by going through Hemet for lunch at Sizzler, then off to Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Palm Desert, Indio and then stopped in Thermal to see a house for sale. I mean if the price seems too good to be true it most likely is too good to be true.
We stopped to look at the house and the town was a little more than we bargained for. Almost every house looked abandoned, there was a full area it looked like they were starting a community but, only had a few houses built. It looks as if there was a lot of water here at one point but the drought surely didn’t do this town justice. It really is too bad because this could be a pretty cool place and I’m sure it was back in the day when there was water present. Of course we couldn’t stop there and went for more exploring, even though it was late in the afternoon we decided to take the long way home to see more to the desert.
It was really cool being able to drive the backroads and see views we have never seen. We saw some people out camping on a dry lake bed and the vast skies were breath taking. It was cool because earlier this week when reminiscing with my papa he was telling us about how he camped in the desert lots. It was really cool to see a glimpse of some of the things he experienced and be able to see the views he told us about. Life really does come around to a full circle, and if you are willing to take the time to open your eyes to what is around you, you may be surprised at what you see.
As we explored the desert we came across this dry lake bed, other than the one wet spot next to the sign. That may have been added once we got there, but since it wasn’t dry I guess that’s why there are doughnut tracks on the lake bed. To be clear these were there before we got there and we actually were responsible and didn’t drive on the dry lake bed. I really took the photos to show Noah cause he loves doing burnouts and doughnuts. It is crazy to think at one point this lake bed was a lake and there was water out here. Makes you think how different it would be with water there. The sun was setting and we had to start our journey back. This day was perfect exploring day with the kids and so much fun to see the other side of California. A lot of times we think of California as San Fransisco and Southern Cali beaches.
As we drove out of the dessert we found some firewood at a roadside stand, in front of someones ranch. We were excited to support local ranches and get prepared for our campfire with the family tomorrow night! The day was a super long day, John decided he didn’t want to hear us or the music anymore at that point he put his ear muffs on from the drag races and fell asleep. I call this a successful day…..
