MOJAVE / JOSHUA TREE DAY 2 - SUNSET AT JOSHUA TREE

 

Well rested, we make a healthy breakfast, pack some wraps and head out.  It’s almost an hour to Cottonwood, the south entrance to Joshua Tree National Park.  At the visitor center, we get our pass and a map, and double check that we’ve downloaded the National Parks app and the Joshua Tree map set in AllTrails.  

(click on the picture to view the full size image)

It’s the first time we have used the Parks Service app and it’s very good, providing an audio guide for each point of interest along the drive.  It hits on a lot of details that we definitely would have missed out on, and gives us greater appreciation of the park, especially the flora.  First stop is Smoketree Wash, the spillway that becomes a wide raging river during the flash floods, identifiable by the white sand instead of the brown-gray everywhere else.  As the elevation starts and we pass Porcupine Wash and Pinto Basin, the hardscrabble rockpile hills morph into genuine mountains with bulbous rock features in the foreground. 

On the narrator’s suggestion, we stop to see the stalky Ocotillo plant, it’s rare red flowers just starting their spring bloom.  Next, we play in the Cholla Cactus Garden, a naturally occurring feature that appears to span several hundred acres.  These furry, funny plants absolutely exude personality and appear to vibrate-glow in the sunlight.  We watch as a grandmother, trying to get a vacation picture with her granddaughter, learns why they are called the Coachella are also called Jumping Cactus when her bottom barely brushes the plant while posing and is treated to a butt full of needles.  Not content to learn that lesson once, we watch as she does the same thing 5 minutes later.  Thanks, National Parks app, for literally saving my ass.

We continue through the desert canyon where the Colorado Desert to the south gives way to the Mojave Desert to the north.  We’re surprised at the elevation change, so steep it pops our ears, and the rock formations dramatically change again.  The Arch Rock / Heart Rock hike is a big, happy playground where we pick out all sorts of stone creatures like elephants, monkeys, whales, squid and, of course, that most Insta-ready heart.  The trails are nice, but it's way more fun to scramble in, over, under and around the formations instead.  

(whale and seals)

(giant squid)

(giant martini olive)

(arch rock)

We also get up close to some Desert Mistletoe (that we heard about in the app), a bright red plant that grows on the stems of other host plants after it’s seeds are deposited in bird droppings.  It’s about 2 miles by the time we get back to the car and even though it’s cool, we can tell how quickly you can become dehydrated. 

Next stop Live Oak Picnic Area, so named for the Mons Oak, an ultra-rare deciduous tree in the desert.  Suspected to be a strange, naturally occurring hybrid of two dissimilar oak trees in the American southwest, there are only two known living examples of this tree, both here in Joshua Tree.  Past the tree, the expanse of the valley opens up in golden hues all the way to the horizon.  Forgoing the picnic tables, we find a nice perch on a high rock for our trail-picnic lunch. 

We buzz out of the park through the north entrance into the town of Joshua Tree.  It’s reminiscent of Woodstock New York, still trying to hold onto its past-it-prime Hippie heritage.  There are an abundance of “vintage” shops, selling everything from dusty old clothes to dusty old décor to dusty new tee shirts in mostly open air stalls and stores.  Big Josh’s is fun and photogenic, but we give up on those shops pretty quickly and head to the town’s only bar, the Joshua Tree Saloon.  It’s an authentic western joint with cold beer and a female bartender who finds a way to work the F-word into every sentence at least once.  The mood is happy, the music is good.  This place is us.  Across the street is the Visitor Center, and the elderly ranger gives us a pro tip on where to see the sunset tonight. 

Back into the Park, we leave the car near mile marker 21 and just walk into the field of Joshua Trees.  If you’ve never seen one, the branches are covered in an almost furry bark, with a spikey ball of green leaves(ish) at the top of each one.  If you told me Dr Suess designed these, I’d totally believe you.  The idea this afternoon is to get a picture of the park’s most famous resident in front of the orange glow of the sunset.  We upgraded our camera for Christmas and even took a photography class, so we’re going to try with both our new R10 mirrorless and our iPhones.  We probably take a few hundred exposures, Mandy doing better then me, the iPhone outperforming the camera, but we’re still working out the aperture and ISO settings.  In the end, it’s romantic to just sit on our blanket and just watch the day fade.

Did I mention there’s only one bar in town?  And only a few other places are open for dinner, so it’s back to the Saloon.  My ribs are humongous, Mandy’s chicken is fantastic and the service is downright excellent, both friendly and attentive.  We bide our time until it’s good and dark outside.  It’s about 60 miles from the north entrance to south and about 25 miles in is certified dark skys area.  Tonight is the new moon, as dark as it gets at night, and we’re hoping to do some high quality star gazing. The stars are great to start , but no sooner do we get there than the clouds start rolling in.  We didn’t know that at night clouds can reflect light from towns hundreds of miles away, becoming glowing reflectors and foiling the dark sky view.  Regardless, the desert at night is a pretty magical place to be, so we take it all in from our blanket for a while.  The drive the rest of the way to the south entrance is an experience to itself, winding roads in the pitch black like the setup to a Hitchcock movie to end our day’s adventure.