Joshua Tree National Park May 14

We woke up early this morning which is good as we want to visit Joshua Tree National Park before heading up to Sequoia National Park where we will actually start the camping part of our adventures.

The visitor’s center is actually in the town of 29 Palms and doesn’t open until 9:00.  The park opens earlier.  There is a ranger talk at 9:00.  That will be a nice way to get an intensive quick exposure to the park. 

We enter the park (Sure do love those senior park passes).  First impression  - Looks like a cosmic-sized land mover has cleared the land and pushed it all into big rock piles.  A little further in and those piles start looking more like huge rock blocks stacked randomly.  Oh my!  A snow capped mountain suddenly appears as we go around a curve. 

We drive deeper into the park for about 30 minutes and arrive at Keys View.  There is a big parking lot and we are the only car there.  Nice!  Oh, there are 2 snow-capped mountains in view.  The view is impressive.  A sign indicates that we can see mountains 30 miles away.  The valley below is dry.  It used to be green but the river was diverted upstream for irrigating fields upstream.  We humans are worse than beavers.  We later find out from the ranger that the San Andres fault goes right down the valley.  The fault is what caused all the rubble we saw as we entered the park with huge igneous rock hidden under the rubble.  By the time we left the Keys view parking lot, there were several more cars. 

We head to Cap Rock where the ranger will give his talk.  Small talk while we’re waiting for others to gather for the lecture.  Turns out the ranger grew up in Smyrna. 

Interesting tidbits from the Ranger Talk:

The Joshua Tree was named by the Mormons who thought a valley of the trees looked like Joshua’s army.  Somehow the name stuck.

The tree is of the Yucca family.  When a bloom forms at the end of a branch, it stops the growth there and the new growth starts next to it.  This is what causes the interesting branching of the trees.

 The flowers are pollinated by a special moth.  One of those mutually beneficial relationships. 

The trees grow about 1 1/2 Inches a year.  The age of the tree is determined by it’s height and the number of branching it has.  The older ones are about 300 years old. 

The park is where the Colorado and Senora desserts merge.  The desserts are determined by what plants grow there.  The Joshua trees require the cooler, slightly damper climates of higher altitudes. 

Time to hit the road for a 6-7 hour drive to Sequoia.  We will be skirting around LA and then heading North.  A couple of traffic back-ups…..  We are in the vicinity of LA after all. 

Oh dear, we broke our no chain restaurant rule.  There is sooooo little along the highway we’re taking.  We tried the Little Chicken that was connected with the gas station.  YUCK! A few dried out, over fried pieces of chicken and they aren’t making any more.  I guess it’s going to be the Wendy’s that’s connected to the other gas station.  Those are the only available choices. 

As we drive, I’m impressed with how flat the valleys are and how abrupt the mountains are.  Then it’s so obvious when fields are being irrigated. 

We stop to get groceries before going into Sequoia National Park.  We have a list.  We had planned to get a rotisserie chicken for dinner tonight since we would be setting up camp, an easy dinner not requiring cooking would be nice. Ugh!  They only have one left and it looks pretty pitiful.  Maybe there will be a place to stop before we get to the park.  There is a little gas station market.  Even worse choices but they do have a 2 1/2 gallon jug of water with a spigot.  We pick that up.  What????  $11???  I don’t think so.  On to the park.

The road is very curvy with huge drop-offs and beautiful views.  We find our reserved camp spot and set up the tent.  Glad for the practice run at home, it went up smoothly and we were all set in about 30 minutes.  A beer and mixed nuts sounds like a perfect dinner. 

We hear water rushing nearby our campsite.  We follow the sound and right across the little road and down a steep embankment of rocks is a fast flowing, beautiful mountain stream.  Life is good!

The first stars (planets) are poking out.  We wait until it gets nice and dark and drive about 3 miles to where the road is closed.  Wow! It’s dark! And soooo many stars! We aren’t high enough to get a good 360 degree view of the sky but it doesn’t matter.  We sit on the ground and just look up and enjoy. 

Back to camp.  Good night.