Yes, believe it or not we drove down to the Mojave National Preserve and went on another hike. After today, we think the boys may have had enough of hiking though. Today’s trip was cut a little short because nobody seemed to have strength to go on any farther except for Mom. The trip took about 2 1/2 hours one way and the boys slept on the way down while Mom got a small cat nap on the way back. The Mojave National Preserve actually has more sand dunes than the Mojave desert and more Joshua trees than the Joshua Tree Forest. The only problem is that they also have no roads or at least what we would consider roads. The areas that were paved were quite rough and then we ended up on some dirt roads (primitive roads) that were so bumpy they actually knocked off the rear view mirror. Needless to say there weren’t a whole lot of other people out there with us, except for the group of people competing in a bicycle race… they appeared to all leave after the race. We never made it to “hole in the wall” or the sand dunes because of the rough roads but we did get a short hike in as we were leaving – the entire trail would have led to an abandoned mine had we completed the entire 3 miles. Other than that we did wander around some other parts of the desert, but it seems that once you have seen one part of the desert you have pretty much seen it all. Overall we all had another fun day but we think everyone is ready to come home.
The Payne Chronicles 
