We woke up at 6am, and met Pete and Kevin at 7. We headed across the street to Denny's for a quick breakfast. As our food was being served Kevin asked for some ketchup, but the waiter said they didn't have any. Huh? Denny's without ketchup? When we all looked puzzled, he produced some from his apron, which got a good laugh out of us. When the bill arrived, it was wrapped around a pack of ketchup and handed to Kevin. Then we realized it was a bill for more than $120! There were kids meals, burgers, all kinds of stuff. We looked around to see our waiter chuckling in the back. He brought out the real bill and we all laughed. Humor at Denny's, who knew?

We drove out to Interstate 10 and then North to Joshua Tree national park. We entered through the West entrance and immediately saw lots of Joshua Trees all around. We stopped at a big rock that some people were climbing and looked around. Then we went to a trail that led to the Baker Dam. It was about a mile hike, over easy terrain. We all had cameras and took our time along the trail, snapping some great photos. The small lake behind the dam was really beautiful, calm as glass and showing a perfect reflection of the rocks on the far side. A great photo op. Then we continued on the trail back to the parking lot. Back in the car we drove through the rest of the park, marvelling at the way the vegetation changed from one area to another. We made another stop at a big field of cholla, a kind of cactus. There were thousands of them, but only in a relatively small area of the valley.

We exited the park on the South side, then continued on to the Salton Sea. It's the largest lake in California, fed by mountain streams. No one seemed to know if it was fresh water, or salty like the Great Salt Lake. We'll have to look it up when we get home. From there we headed West towards Palm Springs, passing through a number of very small farming communities. We were all really hungry and finally found a Subway to eat at in Indio. Afterwards we headed back to the hotel where we hung out at the pool and took some short naps. While it had been between 75° and 100° during the day, the low humidity had kept it very comfortable.

At 6pm we all grabbed a cab into town where we ate at The Lobster Company. Our waitress was lots of fun and kept the Cosmos coming throughout dinner. The food was very tasty and the weather was perfect for eating outdoors. We all laughed and enjoyed the meal, then walked down the 'strip' for a bit. We were all feeling a bit beat, so we called a cab and headed back to the hotel where we all decided to get to sleep. It was almost 8:30pm, way past our bedtime!