2/15/2023
I had some time to kill before I needed to be in LA, so after leaving Las Vegas I went down to the Joshua Tree National Park area. On the way I drove through the Mojave National Preserve. I was surprised at how pretty the desert was. In one section, one side of the road was barren from fire and the other was full of huge cacti and Joshua trees. The Kelso Dunes were neat too. These were huge sand dunes in the middle of the mountains.
On the way I drove through Wonder Valley, about 10 miles East of Twentynine Palms, CA. This was a strange little place with a bunch of tiny cabins and cinder block houses. There’s also a lot of art displays by the side of the road. After looking into the history, this land was put up for homesteading in the 1930’s and by the 60’s it was mostly abandoned.
After all of the stopping, I got to the Joshua Tree visitors center just before they closed. There wasn’t enough light left to go hiking or see anything in the park and I decided to leave that for tomorrow. The General Patton Museum was on the South side of the park and there were a couple breweries along the way, so I started in that direction. I didn’t realize how close I was to Coachella, where the music festival is, and Palm Springs, CA. I thought Palm Springs was North of LA for some reason.
My first stop was at Coachella Valley Brewing Company in Thousand Palms, CA. I was planning on having a flight and moving on, but they had trivia and I pretty much had to stay. I joined up with a group of regulars and I ended up staying there for a couple hours. Everything that I had there was really good. We did end up winning a free pint, but only got third place. After most of the people cleared out, the beertender let me check out the brewery while he cleaned up. This brewery is unique in that they use a filter press that heavily reduces the waste water and grain solids.
My next stop was at Las Palmas Brewing in Palm Springs, CA. They are a small brewery and they have all of their equipment on display, which is pretty cool. I was only able to get last call so I got a schwartzbier that was pretty good.
