One Park at a Time: Park 11: Joshua Tree National Park

8/16/12. Our summer vacation trip started in Anaheim with a terrific visit to Disneyland and the D23 Convention. Therefore, we planned to visit as many national park units in the southern California area in the few days we had before flying home.

We started out by renting a car in Anaheim, picking up lots of snacks and water at the 7-11, and then drove east to the Joshua Tree Visitor's Center. The ranger helped us plan our visit. Then we purchased a few more bottles of water and headed into the park.

The views of the northern part of the park were amazing. The Joshua trees and huge boulders were unlike anything we had seen before and fel more like a Martian landscape than a national park! We drove first up to Keys View, the highest point in the park, and enjoyed the view of the valleys and mountains in the distance.

Joshua Trees at the entrance to the park

The amazing jumbo rocks created the aura of another world

Keys View

Next we drove back to the Keys Ranch and Barker Dam area, stopping frequently to read the educational panels and take photos. We stopped and walked the trail down to Barker Dam and then climbed on the rocks to get a better look at the petroglyphs. Next we headed off for another trail to an old mine, but as we left the car, Jason got an alert on his phone about a flash flood alert and it started to rain. Since we were on an unpaved road, we decided to skip this trail and get back on the paved roads.

We drove up to the Oasis Visitor Center, got our passport stamp, and then decided to work our way down through the Mojave section of the park to the Colorado desert. We drove through the jumbo rocks and went by Skull rock, and then headed down to the Cholla Cactus Garden.This was probably our favorite part of the park. The cacti were so unearthy and exotic! We walked the short trail through some of the cacti, then headed off for the rest of the park as it started to rain again. We enjoyed the irony that the only time it rained during our trip in southern California was in the Mojave.

Skull Rock

Cholla Cactus Garden

We continued our drive south, stopping to study the ocatillo plants more closely, then making our way into the Colorado desert. By now it was late afternoon so the sun was low in the sky, providing a magnificent jagged skyline with glowing blue striations of mountain peaks. It was truly breathtaking. As we reached the end of the park, we stopped and walked down to the Lost Palms Oasis. Finally, we reached the Cottonwood Visitor's Center which by this time was closed for the day.

Ocatillo trunk

Rain over the desert

Lost Palms Oasis

We exited the park and drove along I5 to Palm Springs to have dinner. We loved the views of the setting sun, wind farms, and mountains as we headed west. About 10 pm we finally reached Oxnard, on the coast so that we were close to our Channel Island adventure tomorrow.