Early hours freeway driving into the rising sun...desert bound. Riding the 10 East out of sprawling L.A. listening to Mum we motor through suburb after suburb, factory outlets and criss-crossing highway overpasses, and wind farms... towards open space and forests of yucca trees--- also known as Joshua trees (and made popular by u2). It is a stunning national park with which we are forming a special bond after having been there several times now with different visitors and friends. The place reminds us of where we are in a biogeographic sense...and what Southern California is really...A DESERT. For the first time we camped out in the park, which allowed us to appreciate the place in a holistic way. Our friend Scott brought binoculars with him and gave us an astronomy lesson in the nocturnal desert sky. I saw a fistfull of shooting stars streaking and located Leo's constellation...learned about double stars, and saw a galaxy or two. Definitely a humbling experience to contemplate the great expansive universe that we inhabit.

Joshua Tree National Park is a major rock climbing mecca. We didn't do any serious climbing with ropes, but we did take advantage of the extremely grippy granite rocks to do some exploring and scrambling on these big boulders...relics of igneous material that have been exposed over time.



We did a short walk to Barker's Dam...a murky pool of water....remnants of a former man-made lake that was used to irrigate pastures for cattle. Yes, cattle. A place called Hidden Valley in Joshua Tree is where stolen cows were effectively hidden in the desert. Many of the cacti were budding and there were some very pretty desert flowers.






It astounds me that there is enough rain to sustain plant life. Joshua trees can get to be a few hundred years old, but are very slow growing.

Simon walks through a grove of some tall-ish Joshua trees.

We saw some rabbits, a snake and even coyotes.
















A pic of our whole gang in Hidden Valley...and Simon, Trik and I at sunset on the rocks near our campsite.