This is a Joshua Tree - I'd never seen one before so I made everyone stop
so I could take pictures. Dina and Anne-Louisa seem to be laughing at Kyle
because his eyes are closed or something.
This is looking directly up from the bottom of a Joshua Tree - it was about 10
feet tall and very prickly.
Dina and pretty red rocks...
Beautiful red rocks, this is all in the Mohave Desert by the way, on Rt. 14.
Typical Mohave Desert - looking towards Death Valley although it's still about
150 miles to the East. We had a debate in the car about whether this was ice
(it was 55 degrees out though) or salt.
We passed through Lone Pine, which looked like a typical Western mountain town
in my East Coast mind.
Mt Whitney is one of these, and it's the highest point in the contiguous United
States. Dina says it's 14,494 ft.
More of the Sierras... on the way home I think.
I was so excited to see this but no one else seemed to care too much - this is
Owens Valley Radio Observatory, which is home to the Caltech Millimeter Array,
a CMB telescope, a solar interferometer and most importantly, it's a VLBA site!
The VLBA antenna is the big one, which seems to be stowed at the moment.
This observatory was also in the comedic masterpiece, "The Arrival"
with that wonderful thespian, Mr. Charlie Sheen.
