Joshua Tree National Park

Hello everyone from beautiful Bullhead City, Arizona, just across the Colorado River from Nevada Gambling.  I'm spending the night in the Desert Rancho Motel, on a strip that has lot's of gun shops and pawn shops and massage parlors. Oh and it's 100 and its 7 pm.  I'm here because my bike decided to take a giant shit and stop running. So luckily there's a Kawasaki dealership here that I was towed to (thank you roadside assistance).  They took a look at it and we decided it was the carburetor and they would look at it first thing in the morning. Which brings me to the report on Joshua Tree...

This has to be one of the most beautiful parks I've been in as far as campgrounds go.  I was planning on doing an overnight and then head on. I stayed 3 nights.  Great hiking, riding, and beautiful scenery.  And not a bad camp spot in the place. Every spot is nestled among boulders with fire ring and shade and is semi private.

The ride into the park

Joshua Tree is a freaky place, lot's of cactuses, boulders, and of course sand and sun.  Still getting used to that and it will get hotter as I move into AZ, NV, and UT..

The Joshua Tree itself

And for my first home cooked meal as I had a grill at my site!!

With a bottle of Twenty Nine Palms liquor stores finest...

And because I'm being healthy, some fresh fruit...

Climb on the rocks to watch the sun set..

And a little camp fire..Out by about 9pm because I wanted to get an early start to get through part of the Mojave Desert before it got too hot.

Little did I know my day would end at about 2 pm, just outside the desert on a freeway offramp.

After about 170 miles of straight desert, with about 3 turns total, my bike started chugging and lugging and I pulled over and it wouldn't start again. I knew it was the carb as I had been having problems with it earlier and had had it serviced outside Joshua Tree.  Guess that didn't do the trick.  It was hot, but I found some shade.  As the tow truck cruised down to the shop I saw a roadside sign with the current temperature  106......Hopefully it's a quick fix...I'll know more tomorrow