Road trip to Joshua Tree (with UNIQUE stops) | Apple Pie, Salton Sea, Ladder Canyon, & MORE!

Gotta be honest, I did not expect to see this type of scenery here in California. We've spent the last few days exploring San Diego, but we're actually leaving the California coast for a bit to go to the desert and visit some national parks before heading back down to the coast in a few weeks. And over the next couple days we're going to be road tripping from San Diego to Joshua Tree and making some fun and unique stops along the way. Our first stop is the charming historic mountain town of Julian, which is just about an hour northeast of San Diego. And the 1870s gold was found in a stream nearby Julian, which led to San Diego County's first and only gold rush, which lasted until about 1900. Around the same time someone brought a wagon load of young apple trees and they thrived in the climate in the area. And today Julian is famous for its apple pies, which of course naturally is why we're here. We're here in the early morning and the entire town just smells like an apple pie. It's the absolute best. There are tons of places in this little town to get apple pie, but we came to Julian Pie Company. This thing looks so delicious. We got a caramel dutch apple and the dutch means that there's a crumble on top and then there's also the caramel. There's a drizzle underneath all this ice cream that we got piled on top. Holy smokes! Best apple pie, maybe best pie I've ever had. I don't know. That is so good. The crust is so flaky and buttery. The crunch on the top there is just beautiful and sugary and the apples in there are so cinnamony and you can just taste the apple flavor coming through. And if you top anything with ice cream it's gonna make it better. Wow. Oh dang. We are not pie connoisseurs. We don't even eat pie that often, but I agree. Hands down one of the best apple pies or pies I've ever had. Oh that crunch on top. The crumble is so beautiful and then the apples are just so tender and nice and soft and cooked really well. So just like the texture of the crunch and the softness of the apples. So good. Apple pie, breakfast of champions. Currently driving through Anza-Varego Desert State Park which is the largest state park in California. The park is known for its desert scenery and its badlands which is a complete contrast from where we just were in Julian where it's more mountainous and green and they're only under an hour apart. While there are things to do in the park that don't require a 4x4, the number one thing we wanted to do in the park Fonce Point does require a 4x4, so we're going to skip the park for this time and then come back at a later day when we have a more suitable vehicle. But there is a really unique attraction we want to check out that's just outside the park that we're going to go to now. Just outside of the state park is the town of Varego Springs which has 130 sculptures known as the Galeta Meadow sculptures. This all started back in 2008 when Dennis Avery who owns the land thought it would be cool to have sculptures on it and enlisted the help of artist Ricardo Braceta to bring his vision to life. There are sculptures of elephants, dinosaurs, bears, horses, oh my! The original ones here were inspired by animals that lived in the Anzobrega area during the Pliopleistocene age with the newer ones representing more of the history of the area and just some random things. We found a map online that shows where some of them are so we're going to drive around and see what we can see. This serpent right behind me is my favorite one so far. I don't know if you can tell but it goes all the way across the road. It is massive. We've spent hours driving around checking out as many of these sculptures as we can but it is time to get back on the road. Our next stop is a place we've heard mixed things about which is the Salton Sea but we figure we're so close we might as well go check it out for ourselves. So a little bit of history on the Salton Sea. It's actually California's largest lake and it sits at 236 feet below sea level at its lowest area. I can't think of any time that me or Katherine have ever been below sea level. The current Salton Sea formed in 1905 when Colorado River flood water breached an irrigation canal being constructed and flowed into the Salton Sink. Over time the water has become polluted with contaminants and the water from the lake doesn't have anywhere to go. It doesn't drain into the ocean so it either evaporates or it sinks into the ground and today it has 50% more salinity than the ocean and because of this the wildlife in the lake has started to die. There are quite a few areas to explore along the Salton Sea but we came to Bombay Beach which was once a popular getaway and resort area in the 1950s and 60s before the water quality started to deteriorate and the area became a ghost town. But fast forward to today while the area is still pretty desolate there are over 200 residents that live here and it's starting to turn into this art hub. There's all these art installations on the beach right behind me as well as in town. As we mentioned we had heard some mixed things about visiting the Salton Sea. The biggest complaint is that it smells and when the wind hits you just right and in certain areas it definitely has a funky odor to it. We'd also seen some photos of dead fish which we didn't personally see here and some people just say it's kind of like apocalyptic and maybe it's it's not what they expected. I think if you come into it knowing a little bit of about the history and what it is you can come and really appreciate it and I would say appreciate it more for its artistic values than rather for its nature even though it is in a really nice setting with the mountains all surrounding and water usually makes everything look better. But walking around here and all the art installations and things kind of reminded me of Marfa, Texas kind of vibes. But overall I think we both enjoyed it. It was very unique and interesting and fun and I'm glad we came. So I have somehow convinced Adam to go on a hike tomorrow called Ladder Canyon but it's not the hike that's the issue it's the road to get to the hike. It's off a road called Painted Canyon Road that's known for being pretty sandy. We don't really like to take risks in the van. We're very cautious in the van. Getting stuck in sand does not sound fun. We did read that sedans have made it just fine but we've also read that people have gotten stuck but it seems like most recent reviews people say it's not too bad. So I've convinced Adam to drive down the road so we can do this hike tomorrow and our goal tonight is to drive most of the way and try to camp that way we can get some of it over with. I think at the end of the day the hike is going to be totally worth the anxiety. But let's hear it straight from Adam. How do you feel Adam? Not good. I'm sure it'll be fine but you never know going into a situation but I am nervous about it but I think everything's going to be okay and it's all part of the adventure. All right here we go. All good so far. It is a tad sandy but it's pretty shallow sand so I don't think it's too soft but the worst part is it is so washboarded. This is probably the worst we've ever been on with washboard at least. This drive has been very beautiful so far. It's getting us even more excited for this hike tomorrow. We're getting closer to the trailhead. We thought we would have pulled over to camp by now but we haven't really found a spot yet so I don't know what will happen. All right. We made it. Home sweet home. So we ended up driving all the way to the trailhead. We don't see any signs here that say you can't stay here so I guess this is our home for the night and it'll make tomorrow morning even easier. As we mentioned yesterday today we're hiking a trail called Ladder Canyon which has a slot canyon and another very fun feature and the route we're doing is 4.4 miles and because of the fun feature it is not dog friendly. So the first part of the trail you're just walking through this canyon on just sand and gravel but it's very helpful to have the all trails map downloaded so that you know where to go but you also have this big arrow here that'll help guide the way up into that slot canyon there. So the fun feature of this hike is that there are ladders. This is the first one. Adam skipped it and just kind of climbed around but I thought it looked easier just to climb up These are not secured to the rock just so you know. Okay it's coming good. We will do this every day. Whoa. I don't like that it doesn't go all the way up. Yeah where do you go once you get to the top? I don't like how much this jiggles. Got it. Just stay in a straight line. At what point can I let go of the ladder? Oh this is way scarier than I thought it would be. Okay reach all the way over that rock. Yeah there you go and just don't push to the left or right just like stay going straight and get your knee up here. There you go. Oh I made it up that one but oh I was shaking so bad the whole time. As we've mentioned in previous videos where we've hiked through slot canyons always be sure to check the weather before you come out. Make sure there's no rain in the immediate area because flash flooding can happen in slot canyons and it can obviously be super dangerous. So I think we're done with the ladder section and there were four total and the third one was definitely the scariest in my opinion. We're now on the ridge trail which will go to the Painted Canyon trail to get back to the van. We still have like three miles or so to hike. There are other ways to get down though. There's one route where you go down ropes but I had a hard enough time with those ladders. There was no way I was going down some ropes. This canyon is definitely giving us Utah vibes especially the buckskin gulch that we explored near Kanab except it's much less orange. It's more of a tan color but there's all these really cool striations and stripes just in the rock which I'm assuming is why it's called Painted Canyon. Gotta be honest I did not expect to see this type of scenery here in California. We just found another ladder. This one actually looks secured to the wall so I like it better already. I don't know how to turn around. We made it back. It ended up being 5.6 miles so more than we thought it would be but it was such a fun and unique hike. But now for the moment of truth. Will we get out of here without getting stuck? Gotta push our luck hopefully we don't get stuck. Just saw a big tow truck just drive by but guess what it is not for us because we got a hundred feet to the road. No California road trip is complete without In-N-Out Burger. We've had In-N-Out quite a few times in our life. When we first tried it I didn't fully get the height but every time we have it I just love it more. We got the double double protein style so we got two meat two cheese lettuce wrap and we got some fries. It is so dang good. All that cheese in there oh heck yeah. We had planned to end this video and the road trip after In-N-Out but due to some warm weather coming up we had to adjust our future plans and cut a bunch of things from this area but there was one spot that we did not want to miss. So fun fact about California it grows 90% of the dates grown here in the United States with 49,300 tons grown in 2020 and most of them come from here in the Coachella Valley. At the end of the 19th century the Department of Agriculture had a program where they sent men all across the world looking for crops to bring back to the United States and after visiting North Africa and the Middle East where dates are grown they decided that the dates would do well in the dry climate here in the Coachella Valley and now when you drive around the area you see tons of these date palm farms all over the place and we came to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s date garden to try a date shake. So a date shake is basically just vanilla ice cream and dates and it's an iconic Palm Springs treat and here at S.H.I.E.L.D. they use this thing called date crystals which are nubbins of dry dates sweetened with date sugar which they then mix with water to make a paste and mix with the ice cream and this is what you get. You can see all of the dates in there. There are tons of little flecks of dates. It smells kind of like vanilla ice cream. Smells really sweet. I have no idea what to expect of this. That's thick. I can't get it through the straw. Okay we're gonna take a different approach. This could be disastrous though. Oh that's super good. It's, I don't really know how to describe it. It's kind of just tastes like vanilla but it almost has like a little bit of a texture to it maybe from all the dates in there. It's sweet, creamy. It's good. It kind of tastes like caramel-y I would say. Oh it's kind of just like an elevated vanilla milkshake. Yeah very vanilla-y but like you said elevated vanilla. Kind of a little bit of caramel taste. Yeah it's kind of hard to describe but it is just delicious fresh tasting too. They also give you the largest size ever for this milkshake. This is 24 ounces. It was eight dollars and we're splitting it because it is a lot and it's so so sweet but the more I drink it the more I love it and I don't want to share it with Adam at all. They also have a scandalous movie. Ooh la la. I don't know how I feel about that. You might have to go watch it. You gotta learn right? Not many people realize that growing the finest dates in the world is the most expensive crop to produce. That was actually super interesting and we learned that date palms don't reproduce themselves. Humans have to help them and there's just so much work that goes into growing dates. We spent the last couple hours running some errands and doing some chores because we have a big week of road tripping and adventuring ahead of us and we had to get prepared and one stop was an Amazon locker which is how we get packages on the road and we had a very exciting package come today. Our new brand new 100 to 400 millimeter G Master lens. Things are about to get really zoomed in. We're on our way to our campsite and it is ridiculously windy. I always say every time that this is probably the windiest day but today might be the windiest day. It is gnarly right now. It's so hard to drive. We have this thing called crosswind assist in the van that kind of like jerks the van if it gets too windy and it actually scares you more. Oh my god you can hear it. We're getting pushed everywhere. This is not very fun. Alright we made it to our free camping area for the night. It's just a big giant open lot almost as far as you can see but this is going to officially end this road trip. We are just outside Joshua Tree National Park which is where we're going to explore next. I would not want to sit on that toilet. Yikes. People said they like our dancing and we shouldn't stop so...