SCOTTSDALE

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

SCOTTSDALE

When U2 penned their famous album ‘The Joshua Tree’ I wonder if they were inspired by a visit to this amazing place?

Joshua Tree National Park

The Joshua Tree National Park is a desert wilderness that stretches as far as the eye can see. It’s just mile after mile of huge rock piles and these weird looking Joshua trees that stick out of the ground where nothing much grows.

Joshua trees

It's all trees and rocks out here

If you got lost in the park with no water then you’d be food for the coyotes as there isn’t a tourist café for miles. We walked one of the shorter 1 mile trails to a place called Barker Dam, a cattle watering hole minus the water. I sweated my own body weight in liquid - it’s a furnace out here!

You’d think in such a barren and exposed place that there’d be little else here but cacti and Joshua trees. Incredibly we did catch sight of a few local inhabitants but luckily not the tarantulas that apparently are often found on the road.

Desert lizard

Chipmunk or gopher?

Hurrah we’re now officially in Arizona heading east towards Phoenix on the I-10 E interstate, an endless grey ribbon that crosses a vast expanse of nothingness sandwiched between various mountain ranges. (Is the Chocolate Mountain range edible?)

I-10 E interstate - miles of nothingness

There’s really nothing to photograph for the next 200 miles except tumbleweed, cacti or truckers all of whom drive rigs that could have their own postcode they’re so big. It’s all huge in America!

Approaching Phoenix

We’ve now reached the halfway point of our road trip. Tonight’s stopping place is a town called Scottsdale (The West’s Most Western Town) just the other side of Phoenix. As we’re travelling by day, like sightseeing vampires we see most towns by night which I suppose is pretty strange.