The Great Western Road Trip and Mexico, but no new stamps... Part One Las Vegas to Mojave Desert to Twentynine Palms

Let me preface this by saying that my December Western U.S. girls' road trip was, in fact, legendary.  Four women, one minivan and a series of some of the most beautiful national parks in America.  For the sake of posterity and future trips, I am going to try and remember the names of some restaurants and hikes, but details are not my forte, so those reading this blog for travel tips will have to bear with me and do the guesswork...

We set out from Las Vegas and the Hudson Booksellers Conference with a backseat full of vendor-supplied snacks and within hours were driving within the Mojave National Preserve...

SNACK-pot!

Before you ask, yes, Sriracha popcorn IS awesome.  I definitely recommend that if you see a bag of this at your airport Hudson Booksellers, you buy some.  No one is paying me to say this; I just want the product to thrive so I can continue to eat it in the future.  :)

In that regard, my other big food shout-out for our December 11th drive from Vegas to California would be Zaba's Mexican Grill in Vegas, where they make a KILLER surf n turf burrito that I fantasized about until we returned to Vegas for our flight home 9 days later.

Our beloved "Swagon" Bess is on the right.

This day marked my first visit to California, my 28th state, and one I expect to visit many more times in the future after seeing just a spattering of what it has to offer.

Our day in the Mojave National Preserve was perfect, with blue skies and beautiful desert views.  We got out of the van and did a couple of mini hikes, the best of which was the Hole-in-the-Wall Rings Trail, a short trail where we walked and at times climbed through some narrow canyon passages using metal rings to pull ourselves up.

To my chagrin (though I'm sure my companions would disagree), zero rattlesnakes within photograph-but-not-striking-distance appeared to me on my day in this desert preserve.  (Shakes fist at winter.)

After the most breathtaking sunset EVER (I am prone to hyperbole; it was probably just the best I'd seen that week), we headed to the very exciting town of Twentynine Palms, where we consumed decent-but-not-amazing pizza and settled in to a cheap motel which boasts the same review.

This is part of the Rings Trail, which is way awesome.

Despite Brandy's belief that any cheap motel that is not a La Quinta is sure to have bedbugs, we survived the night unscathed.  I would call day one a success.

Nature trail by Rings Trail.

Sunset from the road.