Liam was feeling much better, so we drove out from Palm Springs to Joshua Tree National Park. We drove a loop through the park, starting at Joshua Tree and ending at Twenty Nine Palms. We encountered magnificent scenery all the way through and we also went down to the Cholla (pronounced 'choy-a) Cactus Garden - not really a garden, just a huge expanse of cacti waiting to pounce. No joke; here's a report on Tripadvisor: 'I SLIGHTLY brushed by one (did not even feel it) and a piece of cactus broke off and grabbed onto the inside of my lower leg (through pants and hiking socks) and left about 20 red welts, also the only way to get the piece of cactus off of my leg was for my husband to kick it off with his hiking boot as he could not touch it. The spines have microsopic barbs at the end which make it really difficult to remove.' - we didn't get too close after reading that!
We also kept seeing lots of little balls at the side of the road and when we stopped to investigate, found they were actually some kind of desert squash or pumpkin.
Heading east towards Los Angeles, we passed by the two giant dinosaurs at Cabazon. Built by Claude Bell in the 1960's to attract people to his diner, there's a small museum in the belly of the apatosaurus selling tacky souveniers. There's also a T Rex with a slide down it's tail, which was only partially completed before Bell died in 1988. He had planned a mammoth too. The new owner is using the dinosaurs as a platform for his creationist viewpoint and aims to transform the Cabazon Dinosaurs 'from tourist stop to place of worship'. Mmm.
Arriving in LA with no place to stay (we were a day early and our booking for Newport Beach wasn't until Sunday night) we parked by a hotel to get some free wifi to book something online. Turns out we were literally the other side of the wall to Disneyland (not a planned stop, as we intend to go to at least one theme park in Orlando) just about 9.30pm when the fireworks start. So we sat searching for a hotel (plenty to choose from around there) whilst oohing and aahing at the display. We ended up staying just around the corner at a hotel that had a special light in the room that displayed the night sky on the ceiling when the lights went out.
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