Joshua Tree National Park

From the drive over here from Las Vegas, we started seeing Joshua trees... they look to me like something that would grow in Dr. Seuss' WhoVille. On Saturday, we decided to visit Joshua Tree National Park. (Note to self: retirees should not visit national parks on Saturday and Sunday when other working people would normally visit.)

Soon after we entered the park, we saw immense boulders with people practicing their rock climbing skills - yes, that is a person at the very top!

We then went on a walk into "Hidden Valley" - this was a valley surrounded by the large rocks that allowed for growth of many species of plants that would otherwise had not survived here. The rocks captured moisture and the interior of the valley had species that would require more moisture than the rest of the desert in general. However, the Joshua trees, as the one pictured here, were both inside and outside the valley. This is a particularly large one as you can see by the size of Dwayne next to it.

We drove up to an overlook that looked into the valley where we are staying - we thought that was a cloud of smog. Unfortunately, it was a dust cloud, and all surfaces within Miss Daisy were covered with a fine layer of dust when we returned in the evening.

They had a "Geologic Loop Road" that we took - it was interesting, though honestly the "interest per mile" value dropped significantly after we entered the portion designated for 4WD only - the signage seemed not to be kept up so even though we had a paper that told us what we would be seeing at different points along the road, we didn't know where those points were. However, it was interesting, at least for the first half! And you can see some additional Joshua trees there.

 We also visited a couple of the campgrounds within the park. There were completely full, but we were determining if we would want to come back and try to find a site in the middle of the week. We found that the sites at the Jumbo Rocks campground were really not very nice - just wide places in the road, and very crowded. We thought the Belle campground was more beneficially laid out for the campers. We aren't sure whether we will go there or not; there is a night sky program that looks interesting, but we think it is only on the weekend, and it was SO crowded on Saturday that I'm not sure we want to return.

We headed back to Palm Desert by the south entrance of the park. Interestingly, this crosses into the Mojave Desert (out of Joshua Tree Desert) - there are no more Joshua trees, but a lot more Cholla (cho-ya). We stopped to take pictures at a large group of Cholla on our way out.