Where in the World are Connie and Leo?

Hint:  our campsite comes with its own boulder and namesake tree

I hope you enjoyed yesterday's dramatic sunset because at 6 am the next morning it started raining.  We hooked up in the rain, we emptied our tanks in the pouring rain and we drove back toward the Salton Sea in the pouring rain.

In the desert they don't install culverts they just put a dip in the road and let the water pour over.  Well the dips were full of muddy water today.

We checked in at the Joshua Tree National Monument Visitor Centre in the rain.  They told us it should be easy to find a campsite in this weather.  Indeed the Belle campsite was half empty and we wound up choosing the exact same campsite we stayed in 3 years ago.

I went out into the pouring rain to direct Leo in and within seconds I was totally soaked with my shoes filling up with water.  Instead we jumped into the trailer, stripped off our wet clothes, bundled up in fleece and down and made hot chocolate, soup and grilled cheese sandwiches to warm ourselves while the lightening flashed all around us and a torrent flowed through our campsite.

When the rain lightened up slightly we put on our rainwear and set up the trailer, then drove into 29 Palms and spent a few hours drinking coffee and catching up on the coronavirus crisis.  We have been quite out of the loop, and now find that our Prime Minister has self-quarantined himself and in our own hometown the grocery shelves are empty of toilet paper.  Really? The toilet paper aisle here in 29 Palms is also bare.  What's the deal? Personally I'd stock up on cookies and chocolate bars to get myself through a crisis.

So far the only way we're affected is Starbucks won't fill our personal coffee cups and no longer dispenses cream in a communal jug. That and our go-to radio station NPR has turned into the National Coronavirus Station 24/7.

When we returned the dips in the road were full of debris and all the gravel roads and the highway south from our campsite were closed. By evening it had cleared up and we went for an hour walk from our campsite amid the Joshua trees and the boulders. 

The stars came out, but the wind was howling.  We bundled up in our down jackets and were soon in bed.