Ultimate SoCal Geology Adventure

(Suggested playlist while reading this post: Where The Streets Have No Name by U2, Yellow by Coldplay, Route 66 by Nat King Cole, and A Horse With No Name by America)

I want to reach out and touch the flame, where the streets have no name.
~U2

We started our Geology Adventure in Joshua Tree National Park, and I can't talk about "J-Tree" without talking about these weird-o looking trees. Imagine Dr. Suess drew palm trees, and that's pretty much how they look:

Our first official stop was at the Keys Viewpoint overlooking the San Andreas Fault and the Coachella Valley. We got there right at sunset, and it was gorgeous. Here's the valley looking south:

It was so windy at Keys View, it would be easy to pull a Mary Poppins and go riding away on an umbrella. The trees up there are pretty wonky from being constantly blasted.

Sunset between Mt. San Jacinto (center, 10,000+ ft) and Mt. Gorgonio (right, 11,000+ ft) with the token Joshua Tree.

Look at the stars. Look how they shine for you, and all the things you do.
~Coldplay

From Keys View, we drove to our campsite at Indian Cove for some eating, drinking and being merry with a few of our Astrocamp buddies. I tried to eat, drink and be merry by snapping some sky pics all at the same time...what can I say? I'm a talented like that. Here are a very bright Venus (bottom) and Jupiter (center) in the west.

Mars was rising in the east. It's the very bright reddish object just above the rocks in the center of the shot.

Here are Orion (upper right) and his trusty pooch Canis Major (lower left). I like to tell the kiddos that Sirius, the bright star in the center of the pic, is the tag on Canis Major's collar.

I was really tickled to catch this shot of the Big Dipper. It's hard to view at camp with all the trees and Tahquitz Peak to our north.

After many s'mores and songs around the campfire it was time for bed. For those of you who have never camped in the desert, let me just say it's cold. Really cold. I was wearing three layers of jammies and a knit hat inside a blanket inside a sleeping bag, and I felt like I was wearing a bikini and sitting on a glacier. Yeah, we're talking COLD. I could definitely have used a dog (or an entire dog sledding team) to cuddle with.

Emerging from my tent Saturday morning, I was greeted with a "Hi Jaime!" from the Fab Four. No, the other Fab Four....from Astrocamp: (l-r) Eric, Alex, Keith and Jeff. This looks like an album cover, don't you think?

The rock formations in J-Tree are amazing, and a climber's dream-come-true. Here's a close-up of a little secret passage in a rock jumble.

We had a little company for breakfast. This character supervised me while I made coffee.

Take my way. That's the highway that's the best.
~Nat King Cole

After breakfast, we were met at Indian Cove by some friends of Astrocamp, the Mettler family. They joined our little caravan in their Swiss Army Pinzgauer (in the lead) as we headed through the Mojave Desert to Route 66 and Amboy Crater National Preserve.

Portland is cool because it's the only city in the lower 48 with volcanoes within the city limits (don't panic-they're all extinct), but Amboy Crater is a volcano in the middle of a dry lake bed in the middle of the desert. It's pretty awesome to be driving along and see the black basalt cone rising out of the sand.

The dry Bristol Lake bed is now a massive salt flat.

Making the turn onto Route 66! I don't know why I'm so excited to have been on Route 66, but I am. So there.

Here go the Volcano Explorers! (l-r) Will, Jim and Colleen are surveying the terrain before striking out for the crater rim.

The ocean is a desert with its life underground, and the perfect disguise above.
~America

After enjoying a PB&J lunch, we headed east on Route 66 towards the Marble Mountains and a trilobite dig site.

A closer view of the layers and our target.

After driving on a dirt "road" at the base of the mountain, we parked the street vehicles and all piled in the Pinzgauer, an all-terrain troop transport. My German is a little rusty, but I think Pinzgauer roughly translates to "twelve-passenger death-mobile." Before we started bouncing and pitching too much, Gwen and I had a camera duel:

We had some difficulty locating the shale bed that would house all the trilobites. We took a "scenic tour" of the Marble Mountains that felt an awful lot like the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. We eventually settled on a site that didn't have trilobites, but these awesome fossils:
Stromatolites! Blue-green algae! The first life on Earth! Yes, the look like black ovals with grey or white streaks in the middle....but you're looking millions of years into the past. How cool is that?

After our fossil hunt, most of the crew drove on to camp in the Mojave National Preserve in preparation for a visit to lava tubes and the Kelso Sand Dunes. I rode back to Idyllwild with the Mettler family in the Pinzgauer. What can I say? My need to sleep in a warm bed won out over my desire to see dunes and lava tubes. I'll take rainy camping at the beach over freezing camping in the desert any day!

Thank you Milly for planning this whole crazy adventure! What great stuff!
Thank you Gwen and Eric for being awesome car buddies! Sing-alongs 4-ever!!
Thank you Jim, Colleen and Ben for taking me back to camp! The back seats are surprisingly cozy places to nap when you're not bouncing on the off-road terrain.