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Corvette Owners Club of San Diego |
JOSHUA TREE WEEKEND EXCURSION
An Alex Best Production
January 25-26, 2025
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Joshua Tree Excursion by Brian Storrs
Alex Best led five other Corvettes from the club on a trip to Joshua Tree National Park on Saturday, January 25th, 2025. It was a very well-planned trip through some great twisties on the way to Joshua Tree Visitor Center’s southern Cottonwood entrance.
We met at Dudley’s bakery and continued East on 78 through Julian, down Banner Grade, through Ocotillo Wells. Traffic was fairly light and courteous, allowing us to recapture our caravan at times. As you’ll recall, Banner Grade is especially fun through the twisties with many more on Desert State Park Road. Continuing through Ocotillo Wells, the road straightens a bit for some high-speed fun!
We headed North on 86 through Salton City and Desert Shores. More speedy travel with the Salton Sea on the right to admire, as we headed to Mecca.
At Mecca, we turn onto 66th Ave and Box Canyon Rd, which has LOADS of more great twisties. It’s a very scenic drive. Finally, we turned North onto Cottonwood Springs Drive, which took us to Joshua Tree National Park.
Unfortunately, Alex bent his rims when he hit a huge pot holes and couldn’t finish the run. Roberta, Shawn and Tana stayed with him while Penn, Bill and I continued on.
Alex planned a GREAT itinerary: walks to Arch, Heart & Elephant Rocks. Keys View has a panoramic view of the valley. Optional walks to Discovery, Face & Skull Rock. Hidden Valley Nature Trails has a great picnic area. Driving took us through several distinct topographies: Chollas Cactus Garden, Jumbo Rocks, Joshua Trees & forests. Bare rocks & loose boulders were fun to scramble through for Bill and his wife & loads of more folk. After leaving the Park, we headed to Pioneer Town to Pappy & Harriet’s for lunch.
Entering the park, Alex as the lead car hit a deep pothole severely damaging his 2 passenger side wheels. Shawn Meyers a couple of cars behind hit the same pothole and by some miracle escaped damage. Everyone grouped together at the ranger station to analyze the situation. Roberta, Shawn and his wife Tara elected to stay with Alex & Gloria to work through getting his wheels repaired or at a minimum road worthy. Alex told the others to enjoy the park and we would meet back at the hotel. Alex brought the pothole hazard to the Rangers attention who acknowledged the hazard, but stated it was not their problem…Caltrans owns the road! Wow!!
We head back to I-10 for radio signal and started making some calls. Being on a Saturday, no one was available. Shawn found “Freddy’s Tire” in Cathedral City that seemed promising about 20 miles away. We drove there to see what they could do. Alex was driving on his Michelin run flats, which held up very well. Freddy’s, a Mexican full on tire/wheel repair shop, dropped what they were doing and immediately jumped into action to help us out. Because of the custom nature of Alex’s 3 piece forget wheels, the damage was to severe to repair. They were able to secure a seal on the front right tire good enough to hold 60psi with a slow leak, about 1 psi per mile. After 4 hours we left for our hotel another 20 miles through Cathedral City.We arrived at The Paloma Resort, a very nice modern Boutique hotel w/Bar, Pool & Restaurant. We checked in and headed straight to the Bar for some well deserved Margheritas…We had dinner reservations in Palm Desert at the famous “Cafe Des Beaux Arts”, Penn Loves this place! We took two Limos and had a Great Time. Should mention that we had new members Bill & Shirley Burch with us. They were like old friends and were a great addition to our event. We are lucky to have them in our club. Shirley drives a new Maserati btw!
The next morning Alex called AAA to get towed back home, we all had breakfast and made our way back. Alex rode with the tow truck and Gloria hitched a ride with Roberta. Despite the wheel troubles we all made the best of it, had a great time and made commitments to do more of this in the future. Life is good when traveling with Great people in our amazing Corvette’s!!!