After leaving Williams and the Grand Canyon, we bid a temporary farewell to Steve and Brenna as it was necessary for them to return to Las Vegas to pick up their car. We instead headed to LA, and made plans to meet up with Steve and Brenna the following day. Before we had left Australia, a friend had wisely suggested that we don’t plan every moment of our trip, and to sometimes just see where the road took us (thank you, Rostyn). This is a principle we adopted where we could, and in the spirit of that, we decided to forego the interstate on our journey to LA.

We loved the wide open spaces. For the first time in our USA trip, there were times where we were the only car on a sizable stretch of road.

We skirted around the northern edge of the Joshua Tree National Park, and motored through unique locations like Wonder Valley, and the towns of Twenty Nine Palms and Joshua Tree. Twenty Nine Palms boasts numerous murals on the sides of its buildings that make for interesting viewing as you drive through.

And this is a Joshua Tree, of which there are many in this area.  Not just a U2 album, but an actual plant species, as it turns out.  This I did not know before now.  Really, travelling is enormously educational.

It was *kind* of like the outback, but really not. For starters, Australia just has a different feel.  Additionally, in the outback you can go for hundreds, even thousands of kms in some parts, and not encounter a business or food outlet. Not so here. Not surprising considering that America’s population is many, many times our own, and a much larger percentage of their country is habitable.

Upon our eventual arrival in LA, we made our way to our holiday home in Hacienda Heights (thank you, AirBNB). This was a hasty arrangement based on the fact that we were originally going to spend another night on the road. Thankfully this lovely place was available for the nine nights we required, had bedrooms to accommodate all ten of us, was very comfortable, and had the added bonus of a pool.