On to Joshua Tree National Park

Tuesday, April 21

Day 14

Two weeks on the road! Woke up early and had breakfast and said our goodbyes to Kitty. She was such a wonderful host. We will miss her! We stopped at Von's for food for camping and then to Starbucks to send off a few emails to beat writers in Phoenix, Dallas and Houston. Hit the road about 10 to head out of this very large city. The traffic was not bad. We drove all the way to Yucca Valley having decided at the last minute to enter Joshua Tree by a north or west entrance. It turned out to be a very wise choice. We stopped at the CA visitors center in Yucca Valley. The ladies there were kind and very attentive but really seemed to be trying to dissuade us to camp. They told us a storm was coming, there is no water in Joshua Tree and that we would have trouble finding a campground available. They told us the speed limit in the park was only 25 mph throughout. Luckily we ventured on. Maybe they were trying to keep our tourist dollars in Yucca Valley!!! They were accurate about the water. 

 We drove to the visitor's center near the West entrance of Joshua Tree National Park and bought our annual National Park pass. The ranger there was very helpful in recommending hiking, campgrounds and getting water. We took her advice and got water.  We discovered that both of our large water containers had leaks.  Poor timing!  We headed to Hidden Valley Campground which is a beautiful  30 plus site campground popular with climbers. There are huge rock formations here. We are definitely the oldest folks in the campground. After a challenging tent assembly, unassembly, assembly, unassembly, etc. we were finally adequately settled for lunch and our first hike.

We hope that little rock won't fall on us at night!

 We climbed up Ryan Mountain. Jack saw a silhouette of a Bighorn sheep on the ridge. By the time I got there, it had moved and photo op had passed. Oh well. We took pictures from the top looking out over several valleys. 

 We walked around the campground and Jodi took some pictures of climbers and fires and the moon. Time will tell how they turned out. Went to bed fairly early and watched the stars come out. Something is wrong with the camping sleep mats. Oh no.  Oh well, the star display was worth a restless night as we elected to keep the rain flap off the tent.

Legend has it that the Joshua trees were named by the Mormon settlers as the trees reminded them of Joshua reaching his arms up to heaven. There are about 5.5 million of these trees within the park boundaries. They flower in early spring and are only pollinated by the small white Yucca Moth. The largest Joshua Tree in the world today is in Queen Valley of Joshua Tree National Park. It towers 42 feet above the desert, nearly twice the size of surrounding trees.

Joshua trees in our campground