KATE and I went to Palm Springs, California with some great friends and attended the wedding of two other great friends. We also went to Joshua Tree National Park on two separate days. We hiked the Mastodon Peak trail in the southern portion of the park (Colorado desert), and then we drove to Joshua Tree, California (Mojave desert) and rented ATVs. We rode in some dry lake beds and into the area around Copper mountain. We saw tons of Joshua trees and we all aggreed that it was an impressive locale.

On another day trip we drove the Palms to Pines highway from the Palms Springs area, into the San Bernardino range and through Idyllwild, CA, and down to Banning, CA. The park was closed due to the recent fires, but it was an incredible drive. The scenery changed from scrubby desert vegetation to low pine forest to full-on pine forest with huge trees and incredible views. We started in the desert at noon and were seeing snow fall in the mountains above us at 1:30pm. It's an incredible place.