The Desert

Much to our surprise, our stays in Palm Desert have made us enthusiastic desert rats.

 Palm Desert is located in the Coachella Valley.  It is the northwestern extension of the Sonoran Desert, and is bounded to the east by the Little San Bernardino Mountains, seen here.

 Harsh environments usually have interesting plant life such as this ocotillo.  I've seen them in a film supposedly set in North Africa.  They are native only to North America.

 This is a jumping cholla, so named because the joints are so easily detached and the spines so sharp that they seem to jump onto passers-by.  Our son, Brent, became very familiar with this plant on a camping trip when we lived in San Diego.  He was walking up a trail swinging his arms when he contacted one of these.  Because the spines have backward facing barbs,  Ted had to clip them off and push them through Brent's finger to remove them.  He was eleven at the time.   

 The animals are also fun.  This Cooper's Hawk posed for us on a fence that ran beside our coach.  It amazed us that he stayed on the fence when we came close.

 While we got a lot of sunny days, we did occasionally experience a few clouds.  This area gets around four inches of rain a year compared with about 42 inches in Washougal, WA.

 One of the most frightening experiences you can have is a pouring rain while you're on the interstate with a bunch of people who may have not driven in the rain very often.  Add in the age of the snowbirds and people unfamiliar with the roads and it really gets interesting.  It is like the first rain of the season in the Pacific Northwest on steroids.

 After the rain, the beautiful San Jacinto Mountains, the northwestern boundary of the Coachella Valley, are seen here covered with snow.  A part of the charm of the Emerald Desert RV Resort is the spectacular view of these, the Little San Bernardinos, and the Santa Rosas to the southwest. 

 Not far from our park is this oasis.  It, like many others, was created by the San Andreas Fault which fractured rocks below, and created dams of crushed rock forcing water from the snow melt in the mountains, flowing beneath ground in most of the desert, to the surface.  As you can see here, the water is very pure and clear.  In this oasis, the endangered desert pupfish is being reintroduced.

 These oases likely saved the lives of many early desert travelers, but there were additional benefits for native Americans and early settlers.  Oasis vegetation provided many useful articles.  This is a leaf from a California sand palm, the only native North American palm.  These were very effective shingles for primative dwellings.

 Spines on the petioles of sand palm leaves were used in much the same way as barbed wire for livestock enclosures, or wild animal eclosures.  They were also wicked weapons.

Note the long, straight stems of this arrow weed.  As the name suggests, it was used for arrow shafts.  The stems are quite flexible and easily worked, but when heated over fire become stiff and hold their new shapes very effectively.

From Ted's perspective, the desert is a great place for relaxing motorcycle rides.  He plans more of them next year.