US Trip 2016 – A journey through the desert

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After a slow day without much caching, it was time to find some caches again. The next part of the route took us from Williams to Yucca Valley, through parts of Route 66, Lake Havasu City and Joshua Tree National Park.

tracklog-a-journey-through-the-desert

Heltinnen had to get up early to wash some clothes (not all hotels we could do that at this year). She met a French geocacher there, that was unexpected!

Since this hotel didn’t have breakfast, we decided to just head straight to Seligman and see if we could get some breakfast there.

First we had to stop for a cache, of course.

Seligman

We also found a nice little souvenir shop, which we just had to look around in.

It was time to get something to eat now, so we stopped at the Roadkill Café.

Roadkill cafe

They served more than just roadkill 😉 After eating and finding the cache outside (and one more a bit further down the road), it was time to leave Seligman.

We followed Route 66 to Kingman, stopping at some caches along the road.

One of them at this nice old gas station.

Old gas station

The inside was just as awesome as the outside.

Awesome license plates

From Kingman we followed I-40 a couple miles, before heading towards Oatman.

We stopped at a few more caches along the way, including another old gas station.

This road almost felt like a Norwegian road, narrow and winding.

Winding road

We also stopped at a nice viewpoint.

Us at the viewpoint The view

When we arrived in Oatman, we decided to park and walk around a bit. We visited almost all the shops and found two caches.

Oatman

One of the locals

After Oatman we left Route 66, so we could stop at a virtual cache in Mohave Valley.

From there we drove down towards Lake Havasu City (crossing over to California and back along the way).

View along the road

We stopped at a couple caches along the way, one of them after a visit to The Home Depot. Why would we need to visit The Home Depot? We had some (okay, a lot) of caches on the HMD-trail on our list. So I got this idea that we should try to find a tool holder or something, that we could put on our belt, and just drop the container in it while signing/stamping the log – to free up a hand.

We found one (a tape measure pouch), and it worked perfectly 😀

We only visited two caches in Lake Havasu City, the one at London Bridge and a virtual a bit further out on the island.

London Bridge View from the bridge

It was hot, very hot! And we spent way too much time looking for the cache at the bridge.

After the stop in Lake Havasu City, we continued down towards Parker.

Nice view along the road

We found a cache in Parker, and then headed out to start on the HMD-trail.

We found a couple caches in the middle of the trail last year, but now our plan was to start on number 1 and find as many as we could before the sun set.

We found the first one (0000) at 7 past 6pm. And we stopped at number 0080 at 8:40pm (we also found two caches not belonging to the trail).

View along the road

Not a single DNF, not that much traffic and a safe place to stop near every cache. This is how a trail should be!

When the sun started to set, it was shining so bright right in my face, that I had to wear two sunglasses!

Double sun glasses

To keep cool in the heat, Heltinnen had a wet towel on her head. Our PT-pocket (which is the name we gave the tape measure pouch) worked perfect!

Heltinnen and her wet towel

Sunset

After watching the beautiful sunset, it was time to head back to Parker, where we had booked a hotel.

Time to head back now

After getting some sleep, we headed back to continue on the HMD-trail. But first we had to stop at two other caches (one large, and one with favorite points).

We continued where we left, at 0081. First cache found at 7:47am, and we stopped at 0180 at 11:22am.

View along the road

We found a whole lot more than we had planned! Guess we were more effective than we though we would be…

We also found a cool spot along the road, a «Shoe fence» – apparently the shoe tree were gone…

Shoe Fence

Shoe fence

We also stopped at another interesting spot along the road, which also was the location of a virtual cache.

Crazy signpost

I’m not sure what the story behind this crazy signpost is, but it was an interesting stop!

We stopped at a couple more caches, including number 0400 in the HMD-trail and another virtual cache. At the virtual we finally found a gas station, so we fueled up on both food and gas.

Not long after, we arrived at the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park.

Joshua Tree NP

We found the cache near the entrance, and the earthcache nearby.

After a stop at the Cottonwood Visitor Center, we stopped at another earthcache along the road before heading towards Arch Rock.

View along the road

I don’t know why we didn’t visit Arch Rock the last time we were here, it really wasn’t that far away from parking…

Arch Rock

After Arch Rock, we headed towards Keys View, stopping at a virtual cache along the way.

View along the road

The views from Keys View were amazing!

View

View

We spent some time up there, before it was time to head back down. Since we had a bit more time than we thought we would have, we decided to head down to Yucca Valley to check in at our hotel.

View along the road

After checking in, and taking a quick look at the room we got, we had to ask if we could change rooms. It smelt really bad, like a smoking room. The new room we got was the same room as we had when we stayed at this hotel last year! 😛

After checking the new room, we headed back towards the park. The plan was to take some photos in the park at sunset. But we were hungry, so we stopped to get some food along the way. We shouldn’t have done that. It took forever, definitively the slowest fast food we’ve eaten on this trip!

Luckily we still managed to get some descent sunset photos (keep in mind that neither of us are professional photographers).

Sunset

Sunset

After taking some photos, it was time to get back to the hotel to get some sleep. We had a long plan the next day as well…

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