Today was the day I finally stopped wussing out and took Senna for a little spin. After completing challenge 1 "back out of parking space without knocking over shiny Harley" my confidence was up a little. Instructor Dan talked me through a drive around the block. I could do it all: Drive on the correct side of the road, left turns, right turns, reversing, speed limits, you name it... Except stop signs. I ran my first stop sign. D'oh! Good job the fuzz weren't about

After that little dose of excitement, we filled Senna up with gas (eventually... America, why are your gas pumps so flipping complicated?) and headed off for Joshua Tree National Park and the Arizona state border.

Joshua Tree National Park is a desert park home to cacti and, of course, Joshua trees. You don't see any Joshua trees for a while when entering the park from the Palm Springs side but there are plenty of viewing spots to stop at and take in the scenery. Klaus recommended that we stop at the Cholla Cactus Garden, which was great. There is a very short loop walk on a man made path through hundreds of Cholla cacti. We were careful not to touch anything as the Cholla cacti spines have microscopic spurs which make removing them require a hospital visit...

I loved Joshua Tree National Park. I've never seen a desert before and now I can say I've seen the Colorado and the Mojave. The rock formations that we saw were beautiful and the vast desert expanse was breathtaking. Well worth a visit.

TOP TIP: If you plan to visit 4 or more national parks then buy an annual pass from the visitor center at your first park. They cost $80 and permit one vehicle entry to any US National Park (State Parks are excluded from this pass). We saved a lot of money with this pass as, with the exception of Joshua Tree National Park, all the national parks we visited were $25 per car to enter.

PHRASES COINED TODAY: "snakey": use as in "No Dan, I'm not going off the path, it looks a bit snakey."