Joshua Tree, Salvation Mountain, And Disneyland, Oh My!

Last weekend Connor and I went on a trip to see bits of California I've never seen on our way to the final destination: Disneyland. Originally we were going to go by the coast and stay in Morro Bay. But wouldn't you know it, all the colleges in the area were doing their graduation and there wasn't a hotel available along the entire central coast. All of it. So despite the heat, we decided to go to Joshua Tree instead. We arrived in the evening and saw the sunset, which was much more impressive because a storm had rolled in and we saw the occasional flash of lightning.

The next day we headed further south to Salvation Mountain. On the way we stopped by Bombay beach, which contains ruins of a once vibrant holiday community. The Salton Sea smells just as bad as everyone describes, but it was still quite interesting to walk around. I hadn't realized that the Salton Sea was formed from a leak in irrigation from the Colorado River in the early 1900s. It has no inlet or outlet and over the years has gotten polluted from agricultural runoff in the area.

By the middle of the day we made it to Salvation Mountain. It is a monument built by Leonard Knight out of adobe and is his tribute to God. The scale is amazing. And to think one man built it. There is a "yellow brick road" that you can climb to stand at the top of the monument.

Salvation Mountain is just in front of Slab City, a place that looks like it has come straight out of a Mad Max movie. There is an outdoor art display in "East Jesus", not far from "West Satan". We drove by, but it was quite hot (106F or 41C), so we stayed in the car. We spent the rest of the day driving around the rest of the Salton Sea, including stopping at a border patrol checkpoint (we were pretty darn close to Mexico at this point). We eventually made it to our hotel in Anaheim that was walking distance from Disneyland. At this point I was suffering from a pretty bad cold, but we walked to downtown Disney, had a lovely dinner, and walked back.

The next day was epic. We spent 15 hours at Disneyland, including lunch at my all time favorite restaurant: The Blue Bayou. It was quite crowded for a Monday, but no matter. We got onto each ride we wanted to once. (We also saw someone getting proposed to.) By the end of the day we staggered back and passed out immediately. Not too many pictures were taken because we were having a lot of fun. But near the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, I found this hat and decided that Disney missed out on having a really good extra in their movies.

On our last day, before leaving LA, we stopped by the La Brea tar pits. I'd been there before, but Connor hadn't. I highly recommend going to the Page Museum that is located on the grounds. Connor got to meet a large mammoth.

We then drove up Highland street so Connor could get a glimpse of the Hollywood sign before we drove on to Solvang for an early dinner. It was 10pm by the time we got back home. We filled our four days to the brim and drove over 1000 miles (1600km). By the end, we were quite happy to be back in our own bed again.

Devil's Postpile And The Alabama Hills: ERT2014 Day 3

Day 3 of the Epic Road Trip of 2014 started off with a good breakfast before driving to Mammoth. I was pretty happy I wasn't driving this leg of the trip. I really enjoyed looking out the window the whole way.

This abandoned shack is just outside of Lee Vining

When we got to Mammoth, it was raining. Mum was a little hesitant to take the bus to Devil's Postpile. (In summer, you have to take a bus to see the rock formation. It helps cut down on the traffic.) I said I wanted to go anyways. So we went, and it turned out that it was only raining on the side of the mountain that the parking lot was on. It was lovely on the other side of the mountain. 

We hiked to the top to see the formation even closer. Even though we knew that the post pile was created by the way lava cooled in the area, it still looked like man-made tiles to us. 

We ate lunch while looking up at the formation. The seat was wet, so I lay out my jacket for us to sit on. Unfortunately I had forgotten that I had put my sunglasses in my jacket pocket. Mum sat on them. She said I did it on purpose so she'd have to buy me a new pair.

After getting new sunglasses, Mum and I drove down to Lone Pine. I had wanted to see the Alabama Hills. I didn't realize that so many movies had been filmed out there. Films like Gunga Din and Gladiator have all had scenes filmed out there. The reason I wanted to go was to see the Mobius Arch.

Right behind the arch is Mount Whitney

What's so interesting about these hills is that the rock it is made out of is the exact same as the rock in the mountains behind. They have just eroded differently. Truth be told, the Alabama Hills feel otherworldly. If you've ever seen the movie Galaxy Quest, it felt like a Gorignak could come out at any moment. (Galaxy Quest was filmed in Goblin Valley, Utah, but it felt the same.)

We stayed until the shadows deepened and the sun faded away. Then we casually drove back to town through the warm and dusty evening.