Desert, Route 66 and gost towns

After our night in Las Vegas we returned to California to continue our vacation tour there.  Our destination wasn't too far, but we had planned to detour through the Mojave National Preserve, which was not a national park as I had just realised the night before.   The roads on the map looked fairly small and when the exit from the highway seemed to lead us into another pass, we hesitated. Fortunately we went as the road went into a wide valley after all full of Joshua Trees.  If you want to see the biggest Joshua Tree forest, you must drive through the Mojave Preserve.  Funny enough we didn't take any pictures as the tourist guide told us the most of them would come up further, so while driving through the pack of them, we didn't stop for pictures thinking it'd get even better....but all of a sudden they stopped :p.

The Mojave National Preserve was and is an important line of the trans-America roadway.






Near Kelso the winds that blow through the valleys get stopped by the nearby mountain ranges and land the sand they've picked up, resulting in huge moving sand dunes (similar as in Death Valley NP but way more impressive!)






South of the Mojave National Preserve, route 66 cruises by



We ended our day in a mining ghost town (currently amidst once again the abundant military bases of the Mojave desert).




Comments

Snooker said…
You picked a good time to visit the desert. And OH! you were on Route 66! So many Germans are jealous right now. :)

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