Yesterday we drove 230 miles, today only 90 but we ended ip the same place we started!  We decided on two  nights in Twentynine Palms,  CA so we could recover from the Desert Rat Day’s activities and the late arrival.  This was an easy day.

Most of the morning we spent in Joshua Tree National Park.  What was really amazing os the stark change in the plants between the Mohave Desert and the Colorado Desert that come together in the park. We stopped on the visitor center on the way back.  Made good use of our national parks senior pass again.

There was a BBQ place in town. Stopped in for lunch to get Joyce her fix.  The first since Santa Fe! Had enough left over for dinner tonight.  Since it was 103 today this afternoon we caught up on managing the many photos taken on the trip in the A/C.

We discovered another local find on our way out of the park.  A local astronomy club had established an observatory just outside the north entrance.  We stopped in to check it out and there was actually someone onsite since it was Saturday.  We were waved over by Mike who was proud to show us around and talk about their future plans to build a 300 seat observatory.  He was especially interested in explaining the “orrery” they have constructed.   An orrery is a mechanical model of the solar system the illustrates the relative positions of planets and other heavenly bodies.  See www.skysthelimit29.org for information.

We returned to Joshua Tree National Park near sunset to take a few more photos.  Arrived a little late, so am not expecting the images to be very good.  On our way back we atopped at the observatory for their Saturday evening telescope sky viewing program.

zzz zzz…..  on the road tomorrow!