For the next leg of my two-week summer 2020 road trip I was joined by friend and fellow RPCV Grenada, Riley Doerrler. Starting from Las Vegas, we made our way South through the Mojave Desert before reaching Joshua Tree National Park in California.

After an early morning hike to the top of Ryan Mountain Trail, which included a sudden rattlesnake encounter (1:18), we explored Joshua Tree National Park before heading out to San Diego. From San Diego, we would go on to drive up Pacific Coast Highway 1 to San Francisco over the next week until cutting over the Sierra Nevada Mountains and back into Reno.