armed: days 8-10, our journey to an end

Thursday night we stayed at the Pioneertown Motel, I had never been there but Kyle had been before and thought that we needed to experience it on our Journey... he was right. Pioneertown is just north of Yucca Valley, California which sits on the north border of Joshua Tree National Forest. The high desert air was cool when we arrived just after sundown, and was a nice change from the climate of the Salton Sea where we visited earlier that day. After we checked into our room we walked up to Pappy & Harriets for dinner. That place was SO cool. It had good food, good ambience, and actually hosts a great deal of spectacular music. Kyle played here before with a previous band, and we saw posters for Calexico, Cat Power, Slobberbone... just to name a few. (Hopefully the Diamond Center can have its high desert debut here sometime in the near future!) We had a great time, and after I whipped up on Kyle in several pool games (he had no clue of my skills) we headed back to our room and ended up completing 2 new songs that we have been kicking around for awhile, and Kyle wrote a brand new one too!

The next day we explored Pioneertown which was originally built to film old western movies, (note the western store fronts) and it also had it's own collection of just plain weird stuff.

About noon on Friday my friend Kyle O, in Phoenix, who we were to stay with that night, texted me and let me know that he got us 2 suite tickets to see TINA TURNER! So we hauled ass through the desert and got there just in time, thank goodness Arizona does not participate in daylight savings time! (trivia for the day)

Let me just say, that 65+ -year old woman could ROCK! What an amazing experience, such a great performer wow!... and you know she did ALL the hits.

Saturday morning, after a huge breakfast at the Black Bear Dinner and some catching up with Kyle O and his wife Andy, we headed to Albuquerque.

The drive between Phoenix and Flagstaff was absolutely beautiful and went from the desert home of the Saguaro Cacti, to mountain home of the Ponderosa pines. On the other hand, the sun went down quickly after we turned onto the highway from Flagstaff in route to Albuquerque, and although it is beautiful in the day, it is littered with billions of reckless semi drivers at night. Thank goodness that by the time we arrived in Albuquerque, Michael, an ex-co-worker of mine that now works for Hershey Chocolate, was ready to show us a good time. We had dinner at a place called the Flying Star, that I HIGHLY recommend if ever in the area. I had the best New Mexico-style-green-chili-stew EVER! (I wish I would have taken a pic of it... I will be dreaming about it for months i'm sure)

On sunday morning, after being loaded up with chocolate and treats from Michael, we headed home.

What a great experience this trip has been, makes it hard to come home. I did start to miss my white furry ones, but if I could ever figure out how to tack them on, I think we could go exploring forever! One day my friend, one day.

Our Pioneer Town room.

... and the common area outside our door. There was a brisk breeze that made the leaves on the trees sound like little maracas, and the stars were so bright... I could have stayed here forever.

There were some joshua trees that seemed like they had been burned in a fire that looked like something directly out of a Dr. Seuss book, as if the healthy trees don't look like that as is.

This was a little gathering of trinkets and other odd things in Pioneertown. Note the rock that says: Better to give than take, says the circle. We each left a little something that had been hanging out in our pockets for several days.