Tag Archives: road trip

A Day In Joshua Tree (or The End Of My Trip To Palm Springs)

Posted on March 2, 2018 | 1 comment

My trip to Palm Springs was 4 days (although the first day was really just getting there in the evening and having dinner) and for the first 3 days we were pretty much just in Palm Springs. But for the last day, my mom really wanted us to go to Joshua Tree and I’m always happy to follow her plans and was excited to end my trip on a fun adventure.

According to my mom, I was at Joshua Tree when I was 7 and when I was 10 but I really don’t remember those trips (and my mom had limited memories and stories from those trips). So in some way, this felt like the first time that I was there. It was about 45 minutes to drive there and after stopping at the visitor center to get a parking pass we were on our way to our first stop.

We wanted to go to a lookout point to see a nice view of the area. And it happened to rain the night before so it was so clear out!

And it was freezing out! It was about 38 degrees outside and while it felt nice in the sun, whenever the wind kicked up it was pretty cold! But my mom and I still took an opportunity to take a photo together since I realized we didn’t have any photos together yet on the trip.

When we were in the car to drive to our next stop, I realized that the photo of my mom and I reminded me of another photo of us. So I found that photo in the cloud and put them together.

The top photo was from when my mom and I were in Paris in January 2005 to celebrate my college graduation. It’s so crazy to think that the top photo is 13 years older than the bottom photo! And I don’t think that we look 13 years older either.

Our next stop was to do a hike around Skull Rock. The hike was about 2 miles and it started at a campground. We were walking to the hike and we already were seeing amazing views of the Joshua Trees all over.

Once we were off the paved road and onto the sand/dirt trail, I’ll admit the hike got tough for me. There was a lot of going up and down which is tough on my hips. But being on an unstable ground was even worse and I was hurting a lot. I tried to limit how many breaks I took but fortunately my mom and her friend were understanding and they didn’t mind stopping when I needed to. But even when we were stopped, we always had something amazing to look at.

We noticed a rainstorm and some ominous looking clouds while we were hiking, but they never reached us. So having those clouds just made the view look even better!

When we got back to the car, we drove to a picnic area to have a quick snack before heading to our final stop in Joshua Tree. My mom was so excited to see the Cholla Garden and once we were there I was so impressed by it!

It was crazy to see these fuzzy looking cacti all over when we didn’t really see them that many other places. They do look like they are teddy bears and would be soft to touch. I’m guessing a lot of people have tried to touch them because there was a first aid kit in the parking lot of the garden in case someone got stuck. I was just careful since there wasn’t that much separation from the cacti and the path we walked on. And there were little broken off pieces very close to the trail and I don’t think my shoes would have protected me much if I accidentally stepped on one.

After that stop, we got back into the car and did the drive back to Palm Springs to go back to the rental house. We had a little time to rest before we all headed out to downtown Palm Springs for dinner. It was getting colder out, but the place we went to had a heated patio so we were able to eat outside and enjoy the people watching on the main street of the downtown area.

After dinner, I quickly got my stuff packed up so I could head home. Originally I wasn’t going to head back until the next day, but I realized that I could avoid traffic (and not miss another day of work) if I went home that night. I think my mom preferred to know I wasn’t going to deal with traffic, plus she still had her friend with her so I didn’t feel like I was ditching her. I said goodbye and thanks to my mom and headed back to LA.

I’m so glad that my mom invites me to travel with her. I really couldn’t afford it without her right now and she really is one of my best travel buddies. We are already talking about a potential trip for next year (we are thinking maybe a spa vacation) so I’m getting excited to start the planning for that!

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A Plane Ride And A Mini Road Trip (or My Adventure To Get To Lake Tahoe)

Posted on June 24, 2014 | Comments Off on A Plane Ride And A Mini Road Trip (or My Adventure To Get To Lake Tahoe)

I got to go see my parents and puppy this past weekend in Lake Tahoe. My parents own a place near Truckee (I went there last summer as well). I grew up going to Tahoe every winter to ski and most summers to hike and enjoy the mountains.

Even though I went to Tahoe last summer, I haven’t gone as often as I’d like. This is because it’s not the closest place for me to go and my parents are pretty busy people. There are times where I have to make sure they set aside a certain weekend for me so they don’t invite friends of theirs up there.

My parents had invited me as well as my friend Kate to come up and she and I both set aside the time in our calendars. I know I’ve said it before, but Kate is like a sister to me, so having her come to Tahoe is more like a family hangout.

As a kid, we pretty much always drove to Tahoe (it’s about 4 hours from where I grew up). I flew a couple of times when I was in high school and couldn’t go on vacation as early as the rest of my family. And since moving to LA, I’ve pretty much only flown up there unless I’m combining a trip to Tahoe to a trip home to the Bay Area.

But for some reason, Southwest (who I pretty much always fly when I’m flying between Northern and Southern CA) stopped doing lots of non-stop flights from LA to Reno. There’s only a couple a day now when there used to be at least 6 or 7 options. And I didn’t want to have to have a layover in Vegas or Utah.

So my parents suggested that I fly into the Bay Area and Kate could come and get me. Then Kate and I could do the drive together (my parents were in Tahoe a few days before we went, so they couldn’t drive me).

That actually worked out pretty well! I got a flight from LA to Oakland and then Kate came to pick me up after she was done with work (which was pretty much the same time that I landed). Then she and I drove for about 3.5 hours to get to Tahoe.

It was a really fun mini road trip. We caught up on each other’s lives (she’s got a new job and she’s living in a new city). We shared crazy stories that have happened lately. We discussed the World Cup (we are both following the games, but she’s following them a bit better than I am).

By the time we got to Tahoe, it was dark so we pretty much just went inside to hang out with my parents and dog (who is more than double the size he was when I saw him in February).

While making my trip take almost 5 hours instead of 1 is a little crazy, it was totally worth it to get some hangout time with such a good friend. Plus, if that’s what I had to do to get to Tahoe, I’m fine with that.

I’ve got some fun pictures from the weekend coming up in my next two posts, so make sure you check those out when I post them!

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Attempting Snow And Sand In One Day (or A One Day Road Trip)

Posted on February 20, 2014 | Comments Off on Attempting Snow And Sand In One Day (or A One Day Road Trip)

Recently in Los Angeles Magazine, there was a list of things that everyone who lives in LA should do. Some things on the list were easy like eating at Pinks Hot Dogs or seeing a celebrity. But others were a bit tougher.

One thing on the list was to see the snow and beach in a single day. It sounded like a fun challenge, so I decided that I wanted to try it.

I asked around to see if anyone would be up for the adventure and my friend Kate said she wanted to come too.

So yesterday morning, we technically started by the beach (or at least pretty close to it). We got into my car and headed up to Mt. Baldy, which is the closest ski place to Los Angeles. It’s under an hour and a half away, so it wasn’t a bad trip (I’m used to the 2 hour long drives to San Diego).

It was an interesting drive. Lots of city stuff in LA, then we got into a rock quarry area, and finally got off the freeway in a nice little community. It didn’t seem like a mountain area, but we were trusting my GPS.

We finally turned onto a road that looked much more like what I’m used to seeing in Lake Tahoe. There were lots of log cabins and signs that talked about the snow plows coming by.

The only thing missing at that point was snow. But Kate and I both said that maybe the snow starts up much higher. We kept climbing in elevation and finally saw the sign for the ski resort.

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But sadly, due to the horrible drought here in California, there was seriously no snow anywhere to be found. There was some snow showing on their webcams, but I don’t think it was anywhere we could have walked to.

The parking lot was a little creepy. There was only one other car there besides us. We both thought it looked a little post-apocalyptic when we looked around.

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Even though it was a little creepy and there was no snow, it was still a gorgeous day and we both enjoyed our little adventure out of LA.

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We started to head back after a little bit since there really wasn’t much for us to do up there. Our original plan was to head straight to the beach and hang out there for the afternoon, but we ended up changing our plans because last night was Drag Queen Bingo (more on that in tomorrow’s post!).

So we didn’t quite make it to the snow and the sand on the same day. But we did make it from 0 feet elevation to 6500 feet elevation and back in one day.

That should count for something, right?

And hopefully next winter will be better and I can make another attempt at this adventure.

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