Saturday 17th September

Today we decided to drive and explore part of the Mojave desert. We were unsure how the roads were going to be as we only had two wheel drive but the ones we chose were paved and often in better condition than the freeway! After an hour of driving through a very arid landscape on the freeway we entered the Mojave on Kelbaker Road to Kelso. The landscape, although very dry, had a soft gentle glow to it and I thought it was very beautiful. Kelso was an old trading post on the Union Pacific Railroad but now, apart from a gift shop, some exhibits and restrooms there was nothing there; which was a shame because they used to have an eatery where we could have had lunch. It actualy felt very pleasant, temperature wise, and quite a bit cooler than Needles where the temperature reached 104 today. The goods trains still run past - one we saw rivalled the Australian trains for length!

We then continued to Cima, which appeared to be just a crossroads where we diverged from the railway to cut up through an area of Joshua forest to the main road to Nipton and Searchlight, where we hit the freeway from Vegas back down to Needles. The Joshua trees are amazing - very large cactus growing up like trees.

We arrived back in time to cool off in the pool and relax before going out to dinner where we went yesterday.