Here are the pictures...
As I drove through southeastern California, there were beautiful mountains to the right. These are the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument.
After passing Palm Springs, with its "oasis in the desert" look and its entertainment complexes, the Joshua Tree National Park is just to the north of the highway. It's actually a combination of two deserts. The one farther north, which I didn't drive through, actually has the Joshua trees (they kinda look like combinations of a tree and a cactus). Apparently, the temperatures aren't as consistently high up there, and they can survive. The lower part of the desert (the Colorado desert), which I saw, was very dry and very hot. It had some scrubby plants, but nothing much higher than your head.
As I crossed into Arizona, I saw a dust storm blowing in the distance. It was probably about the size of a house, not much bigger than that. Sometimes drivers have to stop for big ones.
I had never seen a great big sajuaro cactus growing in the wild. There was a section of I-10 where they were growing all over the place on both sides of the road. I couldn't get a picture until I stopped at a rest area. They appeared to be about 15 to 20 feet tall.
Temperatures on the highway rose to 111 degrees! At night, it only fell to about 82, even though it was 104 at 7:30 and 102 at 8:30pm. They expect EVEN HOTTER days this week!
