RV Travels: Weekly Wanderings #50 – Palm Springs

It's the last weekend of 2016, can you believe it??!!

I hope your Christmas holiday was everything that you wanted it to be. As for Mr. Misadventures and I, it was nothing short of exhilarating!

We left the RV at 7 a.m. and headed to Joshua Tree National Park. We decided to go through the south entrance from Interstate 10 (Cottonwood Springs) and make our way up through the park to the Twenty-Nine Palms entrance. We had gone through the Joshua Tree entrance on Christmas Eve.

As we headed towards the Cholla Cactus Garden (photos will be forthcoming after our shoot there) we stopped to check out an offroad entrance to Old Dale Road and Black Eagle Road, two 4×4 routes that lead you to an old mining area. We made note of the route and its details and continued on our way, planning to enter the Old Dale Road from outside the park near Twenty Nine Palms.

After scoping out various places in the park for sunset and stars, we left Joshua Tree and headed to the turnoff from Highway 62 for Gold Crown Road which would take us to Old Dale Road. When we reviewed the map in Joshua Tree, it said the route was 12 miles long and should only be attempted by high-clearance vehicles. No problem!

After a bit of difficulty, we found the unmarked entrance to Gold Crown Road and reviewed the BLM map which indicated the BLM road marker numbers. As usual, even the number on the entrance to the road didn't match up to their map. We had the NPS map, we took a photo of the BLM map and we routed a map in Google which we saved offline as we knew we would eventually lose service.

We also set the trip odometer to zero so we would know when we hit 12 miles.

And off we went.

Except for having to drive over an exposed steel pipe which served as a bridge, the road was relatively mild.

Until it wasn't.

We eventually started hitting some rough hills and then we came to a mountain. At any time we could have turned around, but we just kept on going.

We went up the Pinto Mountains and over the Pinto Mountains. And it was difficult. Extremely difficult. I was nervous, very nervous.

I was never so thankful when we saw the Joshua Tree National Park sign. However, 12 miles had come and gone and we weren't sure how much longer we had.

Eventually, we came to an intersection for Old Dale Road and another mining road, and the road smoothed out to a regular, pretty easy 4×4 road. I think the claimed 12 miles were inside Joshua Tree only rather the entire Old Dale Road route. BLM and NPS not playing nice together.

When we got home Mr. Misadventures did a bit of research. Turns out Old Dale Road is one of the most dangerous offroads in California – who knew!

Our nerves were shot! So thankfully the next day the only thing on the agenda was meeting up with our old RV pals we met in Moab and also spent a week with on the Oregon coast.

And this guy.

Now eight months old, Finn along with his mommies was the perfect therapy for our death defying driving adventure. It is so nice to connect with other cool peeps who understand the life of living in an RV. Who enjoy good food and good stories. We spent the next three days, talking, eating, fixing things in each other's rigs and then did a sunset walk and dinner by the stars on their last night before leaving town.

It was a perfect way to spend those few days after Christmas.

Yesterday we stayed home because Joshua Tree is a bit nutty right now. We are going to wait until after Jan 2 when (hopefully) everyone goes back to work. In the meantime, we will be exploring a few other things in the Palm Springs area.

Current location:

Two Springs RV Resort in North Palm Springs, California.

That was my week, how about yours?

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