Westward ho!
Tucson was a great little stop and an unexpected gem. But now it’s time to head west for the real meat of my trip. But first … as fate would have it, my daughter Maddy and her husband Zane—who moved from Austin to Boise 18 months ago—happened to be in Phoenix for two days for a Bruno Mars concert (IYKYK). And what two days did that happen to be? The very ones that had me driving from Tucson to San Diego! So YES, I went a little out of my way to spend just a couple of hours with them. That was the best surprise of the week, for sure! I do love hanging out with my young-adult kids. And catching up with one of her childhood friends and her family while there was icing on the cake.
Of course I ended up staying way too long, and when I realized we wouldn’t reach our reserved camping spot at Salton Sea SRA until way after sunset, I decided to make a gametime call and find a closer place to stop. I don’t like having to eat a reservation, but it really was the safest thing to do. Some state parks are difficult enough to navigate during the day, but at night in potentially total darkness? No, thank you. So, thanks to Google, we found a lovely little pull-through, full hookups RV park just over the Arizona/California border off of I-10. Easy, peasey!
My next destination was the home of my college roommate/teammate/BFF in the Torrey Pines area of San Diego. One thing last year’s drive around the country taught me, though, was to stop at interesting places along the way, rather than race directly from Point A to Point B. You know?
As soon as I realized that one of my route options was just 6 miles from the south entrance of Joshua Tree National Park, I said, Heck Yeah! Let’ go! I had not originally had Joshua Tree on my list of NPs to get to this time around, so I was really happy to at least check out part of it. I couldn’t really take the two hours it would have required to get up high enough to see those famous trees, but we did get to see some more beautiful mountain desert landscapes, as well as the best sign of the day: “Don’t Die Today.” I mean, how effective is that?!
Next along our path was going to be Palm Springs, California. What an adorable, beautiful, quaint(ish), very California little town! Maisie and I walked up and down the main drag, past interesting art installations, groovy café’s, wonderful statues, funky shops and a fair number of other tourists. The part we hiked around was a little more touristy than I expected, but I still would highly recommend it! The most memorable part? A 26-foot tall sculpture of Marilyn Monroe. Twenty-six feet tall! Apparently, Marilyn Monroe was “discovered” in Palm Springs in 1949, at the age of 22. She and her second husband, the famous baseball player Joe DiMaggio, were regular visitors in the 1950s. We came across a statue of Sonny Bono as well; you may recall that he served as the mayor of Palm Springs (1988 to 1992), then became a U.S. Representative in 1995 before his unexpected death from a skiing accident in 1998. I have to ask, though, does anyone else remember those iconic Sonny and Cher variety shows from the 1970s? Tell me you’re not singing “I Got You Babe” right now. In case you were wondering, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour premiered in August 1971 and ran for three seasons before being cancelled due to their divorce. They had guest stars from Muhammad Ali to Paul Anka, Carol Burnett and George Burns to Truman Capote, Dick Clark and Farrah Fawcett. The list goes on and on. What a hoot!
My youngest daughter, McKamey, thought it was super cool that her mom was in Coachella the week between weekend shows! Fortunately, I passed through there on a Thursday morning, so there weren’t any traffic issues (I was a little worried). Timing is everything!
Next we took off for our weekend destination, my friend Kris’s house. I can’t wait to catch up with my ole’ college bud!