FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: Bump And Grind

The plan was to hike the Bump and Grind Trail. The hike was full on grinding. Sorry trail, there was a lot of hard work with minimal reward! The trail was quite mundane scenery wise...To be fair, it didn't help that we weren't prepared for hot weather. The vote to turn around at around the halfway point was unanimous. We all wanted to go into Petco instead to buy things for the dog...in the cool of air-conditioning.

Bump And Grind Trail. Dry and rather bland

The "bump" pre hike

The offending "Bump"ee

Down jacket...bad idea!

Getting tired by now

Ok that will do. Let's take a selfie and head back down

A nicer capture of the valley below

Just what every dog needs. Toys made from Kevlar

The children were desperate for some In-N-Out Burger, and the adults didn't have any objections. In particular, they wanted to try the "animal style" fries from the "Secret Menu". We were intrigued and gave the green light. Still not quite sure what it was that we ate...I mean...what makes it "animal-style"!? What it was, it was tasty! With lunch out of the way, we put our sightseeing plan back on track and headed out to scope out Joshua Tree National Park via Pioneer Town. Pioneer Town was...interesting. It was originally built in the 40s as an old west movie set. It is a tiny street and fun to walk down but it will take you a total of 5 minutes. There were shops but nothing too exciting in it, not for us anyway. So if it is on the way, then by all means stop. Otherwise it is a long drive for not much.

Joshua National Park was busy. We had to battle the instagrammers at the major sights but we were motivated to make it to the other entrance as that was where our dinner reservation was. Kitchen In The Dessert came highly rated and it didn't disappoint! Definitely our highlight of the day