When the hubby said he wanted to go to the London Bridge, I started to look at the map. I discovered two things. One we could sneak into California on our to Vegas. The hubby has never been to California. Two I could get another stamp in my National Park Passport by visiting the Mojave National Preserve. If we left Phoenix early enough we could easily do both London Bridge and Mojave Preserve especially if we just drove through the preserve.
The Mojave National Preserve is located in Western California between Joshua Tree National Park and Death Valley National Park. It is part of the Mojave Desert. It is pretty remote. It has 3 visitors centers and all three were closed when we were three. Two due to structural issues and one because it was just closed on Tuesdays-Thursdays. We were there on Wednesday.
As much as I wanted to explore the lave caves, I was pretty sure the hubby would not want to because of the stairs you had to climb down and most likely would not want me to explore them on my own. I did not even mention that idea. Then is saw there was a cinder cone volcano in the park and made that our destination after stopping at the Hole in the Wall Visitor Center to get a map. Technically the Visitor Center was out of the way but we needed a map.
After we left the Hole in the Wall Visitor Center we had to transverse over miles of dirt road to get to back to the main road to get over to the volcano. The hubby was not thrilled to say the least. It wasn't a bad dirt road.. much better than the Apache Trail but it was dirt road nevertheless.
Once we got on back on Kelso Cima Road we were back on paved roads. It turns out to see the actual volcano you need to go down another dirt road and should have a 4WD vehicle. No volcano for us. Guess I need to look into these adventures more.
We didn't get to see lave caves, sand dunes, or the volcano. So what did we see? Joshua Trees and lots of them. Mojave Preserve actually has more Joshua trees than Joshua Tree National Park. Because of wild fires there were several acres of burnt Joshua trees. Even though the Joshua Trees weren't volcanoes they were still neat to see.
If I had my way we would have hiked, explored, and did more than drive past trees but that's not the hubby's mojo.
It was definitely worth the detour even if the hubby disagrees. The landscape is completely different than the Midwest or even Phoenix. Mountains, desert, and volcanoes. It is definitely worth checking out and exploring all 1.5 million acres. Okay so maybe not all but even just a small portion just make sure you have 4WD or 4 wheeler and explore all the park has to offer.
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