August 2

We left Vegas and picked up Aurora's suitcase at the airport.  It didn't follow her to Phoenix like it was supposed to and Vegas was the next logical place to pick it up as we are in a different place each night.  We left Vegas and drove to 29 Palms to visit Jordan (aka nephew Tiger) and Hannah.  Our drive was literally entirely through the desert!  There is no direct route to 29 Palms so we trusted our GPS and turned here and there (part of OLD Hwy 66 was some of it).  At some points the temp outside was 113 degrees! Yikes!  We did turn around when we saw a sign that said "Amboy Crater, 1 mile."  We thought it was a giant hole in the grand and were wondering about meteors, etc.  But it was a volcano!! Very very cool (even at 113 degrees).  It last erupted 500 years ago and left 24 square miles of lava flow.  We did not climb up..it was just too hot and we wanted to get to 29 Palms.  Jordan and Hannah are great.  They took us on a tour of the base (HUGE) and we had a great visit.  Tomorrow Hannah is going to take us to a spot that you can see even Mexico and to the Joshua Tree forest before we head up the California Coast.  It is going well.  Lots of things to see.  The desert is start but beautiful in its own way.  Each desert is different....some sand, some rock, some "tumbleweed-type" stuff, some very scrubby trees, some white (chloride plant...or salt)... Great time so far by all!