Joshua Tree, California

The road was straight and desolate for our drive to Joshua Tree yesterday. It was a pretty good road with little traffic.

We enjoyed the ruggedness of the landscape,

and the many colors we saw in the layers of mountains.

As we approached Amboy, California, we saw the Amboy Crater off to the side.

Our friend The Google tells us that Amboy Crater is an extinct cinder cone volcano that rises above a 70-square-kilometer (27 sq mi) lava field in the eastern Mojave Desert of southern California, within Mojave Trails National Monument. It is estimated to be 79,000 years old and was formed during the Pleistocene geological period. The interior has a lava lake. Lava flows as old as Amboy Crater itself blanket the surrounding area. The most recent eruption was approximately 10,000 years ago.

Amboy Crater was used as a location in the 1959 movie Journey to the Center of the Earth. Fires were set inside the crater to simulate a volcanic eruption. Amboy Crater was also featured in the Viceland network show Abandoned.  It is designated a National Natural Landmark by the Bureau of Land Management.

Across the road from the crater, there were hundreds...maybe thousands...of these pyramid-shaped mounds of dirt.

And so I inquired of my friend The Google once again to learn that these are part of two large, active salt mines that produce much of the sodium and sodium chloride used in high school chemistry classes. Indeed, this dry lake bed was caked with what appears to be sodium chloride, aka salt.

Have I said lately how much I ❤ the internet?

In another 50 miles or so, we passed through the town of 29 Palms and the north entrance to Joshua Tree National Park.

During our last visit to Joshua Tree, we paid for three nights inside the national park. Only, the weather was so cold and windy, we were blowing through our propane at an alarming rate. We ended up cutting our stay short by one night.

This time around, we're trying an RV park I read about online in the town of Joshua Tree, near the west entrance to Joshua Tree National Park. As it turns out, the place is nearly abandoned, and it's a good launch pad for our visit. Once we were set up, the kitties settled in for some hard-core napping.

Later, Smitty spent some time on the catio...

while Sadie snuggled up beside me for some slow-stitching time.

It's time to switch back to the Snowflake project. This will be the second of 12 snowflakes.

These are worked mainly with one strand of DMC floss; however, I've taken to using three strands when I'm doing satin stitch. Maybe that's cheating, but I get better coverage, and I like the little bit of "poof" it gives the satin-stitched sections. This one also uses a metallic floss I've not tried before. This is Diamant from DMC. It comes in a dozen-plus colors.

It's a three-strand floss, and like every metallic floss I've tried, it wants to untwist, which makes it a bugger for threading a needle. Nevertheless, I like how it feels and how it works once I've got it threaded. I tried using just one strand, but it barely showed on my piece, and so I'm using all three strands.

Also, it seemed like a good day for baking. I made Caramel Bread Puddings for Two. I've made this before. It's easy and so tasty. The recipe will tell you to make these in a cup, but I like using the 1-cup ramekins.

Finally, I found this stray picture on my phone of the sunset our last night in Laughlin, Nevada. So pretty.

And that's all I have for you today. We'll be doing some hiking in the national park today. Mainly, we're just killing time until we can check into a space in Hemet on Sunday. We'll be spending two weeks there, with a visit to the Road to California quilt show next Thursday. I can't wait.