Days 31, 32, 33, and 34: Desert Driving and Austin, Texas

Cactus Garden

We left Joshua Tree National Park pretty early in the morning, intent on driving out of the south exit of the park in order to pick up Interstate 10 which runs from just south of the park all the way east for thousands of miles.  We decided to take the “Geological Tour Road” which took us through the desert on a dirt road, past some really amazing mountains, cacti and rock formations.  After the first 9 miles, there was a sign recommending 4-wheel drive, so we threw the Rav4 into desert mode and continued on the road, confident in our noble Japanese steed to get us over the rough terrain to the interstate beyond.    

Our first impasse

Unfortunately, after another 10 or so miles—probably around 2 hours into our drive—the road was absolutely impossible to pass, covered in jagged rocks and boulders that would have chewed apart the Rav’s undercarriage.  With much dismay we turned around and retraced our path backwards, through the desert, all the way back to the middle of the park in order to find a better way to I-10.  With the loss of around 4-5 hours because of our little detour, we continued on down the road through Arizona. 

Phoenix, Arizona

We drove pretty much all day to make up for our directional snafu leaving Joshua Tree, driving through Arizona, past Phoenix, and ending up in Picacho Peak State Park, in southeastern Arizona.  This park was very cool…it was basically right off of I-10 on the side of a large mountain, surrounded by desert and huge cacti.  It was a cool place to spend the night.  

Picacho Peak

We got up with the sun the next morning to put some miles behind us, still trying to make up for Joshua Tree.  We made it as far as Sierra Blanca, a ghost town in the middle of nowhere in West Texas, before we crashed for the night.  The next morning we woke up bright and early, and drove all day to get to Austin for the night, which we did.  Unfortunately, the camera didn’t make it out with us in Austin, but we had a GREAT time.  We had some great food, saw some really cool shops on and around the UT campus, and heard some awesome live music downtown on 6^th Street.  We stayed 2 nights in Austin and had so much fun that we could easily have stayed for another  week if we’d had the time.  But, alas, we didn’t.  On to College Station, TX.