Mojave National Preserve

After our trip to San Diego we headed east - to the Mojave desert!  Many of you already know how much Kevin loves the desert.  I like it too, but I was a little nervous about being there with our dogs in August.  Thank God for air conditioning!  The dogs had their noses so close to the vents in the RV that they had nasal and throat irritation for almost a week afterward.  At least we were able to keep them cool.

As we got into the park, the sky became more ominous.  A brief storm passed through.  As you can see, the temperature outside was 116 F late in the afternoon.  This was the last place we expected to see rain this time of year.

When the storm clouds passed into the evening, a beautiful sunset graced the sky.  The temperature dropped into the low 90's with a great breeze, but for me, it was still a pretty hot night.

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Between 6-9am, the temperatures were very pleasant.  You could see the tracks of all the creatures walking around in the middle of the night.  Our RV is in the picture above to the left.  This was where we spent our first night in Mojave.

Kevin had the dogs off leash early in the morning.  They loved running around in the soft sand!

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Yucca

Joshua Tree (a type of yucca, not an actual tree!)

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Although no stranger to the desert cliffs, we certainly were surprised to see this bighorn sheep so close to the road.  Apparently, they are very hard to spot because they usually are found at higher elevations on rough terrain far away from people.  Had this sheep not been at the top of the rocks, we would never have seen him against the dark background.  This made our day!

The first sheep had a friend close by!  How lucky for us to see two at the same time!

Bighorn Sheep Video Clip

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Here are some shots of the desert landscape.

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On the second night in Mojave, we stayed at an actual campsite around 5000 feet up.  During the day it was much cooler at 86 degrees.  I even had my jacket on from the nice cool breeze!  Kevin cooked dinner on the grill and we had a great night relaxing.  The dogs got to play a little outside.

We thought these were watermelons growing in the wild.  After a little research, we found out they are desert gourds and are very prevalent in this area.  They will climb anything!

As we drove away from our campsite back to the hot desert floor, we passed cattle and an actual ranch along the way.  I don't know how they stand the heat!



Heading home!