Wild-West Road-Trip: Joshua Tree National Park

To say it's hot would be an understatement. It's not even as hot as it will be in a month or so. Emily says that it's not whether the temperature will reach 124*, but for how many days in a row. More on that later. To begin, I need to make an introduction.

This is a Joshua Tree, the world's largest variety of Yucca. They grow about three inches per year in their early stage and then about one inch per year after that. This one is at least twice as tall as I am.

This is a sassy little girl. She's the sweetest bit of sass I've ever known. She grows in spurts despite the fact that she only seems to eat cereal and snack-food on a daily basis. She likes to play with dolls and pretend to apply makeup, she's only about half as tall as I am, and I love her.

Let's go over this again.

One of these prickly forms belongs in the desert and the other needs a nap. Can you tell the difference?

All silliness aside, Adelyn and I walked in the desert for almost a mile today talking about which princesses might live in the desert and what colors would be best suited for castles out here in the wilderness. We talked about watching out for snakes that might be carelessly laying in our path, and we talked about what to do if we saw wolves.

it's hot in the desert. I might have mentioned that before. Addy and I had plenty of water, and we drank as much as we wanted on the makeshift way through the sandy underbrush. Some of those plants are quite prickly. As a method of moving around in the environment, plants adapted methods of attaching themselves to animals whose range extends across the entire Coachella valley.

Here's one you definitely don't want to find by accident. I regret that I don't remember the names of some of these plants. If there's any justice in the world, I think I finally retrieved all of the spines from this plant and its relatives out of the taller section of my wool sock. It doesn't just sting for the moment, either. I can still feel some of those sensations in my legs and fingers.

Here's another example of a cactus plant native to Joshua Tree national Park. I didn't even get close enough to this plant to worry about any danger. I imagine that during a different season, one with more moderate temperatures, these flowers would be more vivid and colorful. For now, during the hottest half of the year, they're still beautiful, just not quite in the same way as they might have been.

Even these very young Joshua Trees are nothing to joke about. Their spines are just as dangerous as the desert floor at night, when the scorpions, tarantulas, and ants are active. There are other animals in the park, also.

We saw birds, roadrunners, lizards, kangaroo mice, coyotes, and hawks in the park. I believe there are sheep, but I did not see any. Also, I was much too busy trying to keep Adelyn on the path and away from the prickly plants, so I regret that I did not get a picture of the coyote. By the time I had raised my lens, it was gone, dashing away from these two strangers, trespassers into it's backyard.

The desert holds an incredible number of seemingly alien rick structures. We were all very curious to know how these formations came to appear across the territory. Apparently, the mounds of broken and enormous rock were layered on top of each other through a process that allows the magma, trapped between two tectonic plates, to push up on the crust. When the pressure falls to a normal layer, the crust can no longer support its own weight. The rocks fall in exactly above the point at which the were resting. The elements remove the looser rock through erosion, and we are left wondering how something so heavy could have been placed on the earth by an advanced civilization.

This rock is named, "Skull Rock." I know, right?

The Joshua Trees and the rocks get along very well.

These spiny leaves harbor what appears to be a delicate fruit and flower.

Maybe it doesn't look so delicate, but in the desert, I imagine this would be a fairly good source of moisture and nutrients.

Moving on, this is the rock formation near Skull Rock. This is also the formation where Owen, Evan, and I worked our way through narrow passages and up naturally sloped rock to reach higher vantage points.

This is also where Owen slipped while running around on the gravel floor. He's holding his arm in the next picture because it might fall off and die iff he doesn't.

He's fine, by the way. We slapped some dirt on it and cleaned it with our own spit.

This was our final stop in the Joshua Tree National Park: the view of the Coachella Valley from the Joshua Tree Keys. I've always wanted to go to Coachella, anyway.

Of course, I had to set up the Platypod and get another selfie. I tried to pick the highest observation point with the best view. 

One final note: This is a picture of Jen and our friend Emily. Emily and Jennifer were in the same Museum Studies program at Syracuse University in Syracuse, NY. Emily works as the Director of Education at a museum in Palm Springs. She has her own story to tell and I'll let her do that in her own time. It's been twelve years since we were all in grad school together at SU. Time flies, but the Joshua trees only grew one foot taller in all those years.

Tomorrow, we travel to Sequoia National Park where the weather is much cooler and trees are much taller and much older. Someone asked for an interior tour of the RV and someone else wanted to see how everything is organized on the inside. Maybe I'll do a video-blog about that topic. For now, i'm going to rest while the desert floor comes to life. I wish you all the best; take care!

- Wayne