Up and out by 7:30 AM to meet Bob, our Adventure Hummer Tours driver and guide. One couple joined us on this hours long experience so we got a lot of personal attention. Bob was delightful, knowledgeable, thoughtful and attentive to detail. The Hummer was much more comfortable than I anticipated.
The day flew by as we saw more types of cactus than I imagined, hundreds of Joshua trees. (Did you know their name came from the Mormons who thought the tree reminded them of Joshua raising his arms in praise of God?) We stopped when Bob realized another group of tourists had blocked the road to allow a seldom seen Mojave tortoise to cross. Later on our Barker Dam trail hike, we got to see a huge Chuckwalla lizard. We saw the Barker Dam and the cattle water trough. We gawked over the 2,000 year old petroglyphs. We saw one rock climber scaling the monzogranite boulders of the more than 8,000 climbing routes available.
Enjoy the pictures of our day.
Our day exploring a small part of the Coachella Valley was inspiring and illuminating. Palm Springs used to be a prehistoric lake which gradually sank into the earth. Today the city water supply is that ancient aquifer. The aquifer is 65 miles long and deeper than 1200 feet. The city makes no claims on any Colorado Basin water used by the cities on the other side of the mountains.
We drove over the San Andreas Fault and saw indications of its presence in the valley as the darkish line in the vista view point pictures. No tall buildings exist in the valley due to the frequency of small earthquakes caused by the San Andreas Fault.
Joshua trees grow about 2 inches a year. They don’t really have bark. They are a variety of palm tree, so have a fibrous inner core.
This has been remarkable day.
No comments:
Post a Comment