From the Ocean to the Desert

From San Luis Obispo, we traveled inland towards Palm Springs, braving the outskirts of Los Angeles along the way. This drive was much different than the others, because it never really seemed like we left "the city." There were no stretches of open road and we simply went seamlessly from town to town, with a steady four to seven lanes of interstate traffic. Our destination campground was located just outside of Palm Springs in the Palm Desert. The weather was wonderful--between 70 and 80 degrees, sunny, and dry. The best part about our stay was that we were only a short drive away from Joshua Tree National Park.

Joshua Tree has an incredible landscape--unlike anything we have experienced before. We felt like we were living in a Dr. Seuss book with all the strange and uniquely structured plant life. Our first stop was at a short hiking trail through the massive rocks that spattered this desert landscape. Again, photographs do not do these rocks justice, but trust that we were absolutely dwarfed by them.

Along further down the road, we drove into a huge patch of Cholla Cactus and were intrigued to explore. These cacti only further rooted our experience in a Dr. Seuss story with their strange, twisty, gnarled branches. Their color was a gorgeous ombre from dark brown at their roots to an almost white at their tops. Beware of these beauties, however. We have never seen such a nasty and sticky set of spikes! They drop little balls of needles all over the ground, and if you are caught gawking like we were, it's easy to stick some in your shoes, pants.....or hands.

After our cactus adventure, we continued down a dirt road through the park. As the sun was going down, we passed huge piles of White Tank granite rocks. They contrasted with the perfectly flat desert landscape, and looked like they had been so carefully placed there by some giant thousands of years ago.

I'll leave you with this fitting image of our lovely Jeep under a Joshua Tree. We really look forward to returning to the park to continue our exploring!