Funny Little Trees

10 Mar 2025

Welcome to Joshua Tree National Park! Don't mind our squints, we forgot to wear our sunglasses coming in 😆.

Joshua Tree National Park butts right up to the town of Joshua Tree, and Sara started screaming for me to stop in the middle of town. Turns out, she found a turtle!

Okay, it's not a real turtle, and we still don't have sunglasses, but we thought it was a really cool sign!

Around town we found a couple of nice murals to add to the collection.

From there, it was into the park! Joshua Tree is the second desert of the trip, and once again, doesn't really live up to that classic sandy desert vibe. This one is a sparse forest.

Turns out, we forgot a cord, so we actually drove all the way out to our campground in the middle of the park and then back out again a few minutes later. Fortunately, there was a beautiful mural at the gas station!

With cord in tow and mattress air pump charging, we headed to the Keys View overlook!

It was really cold with a whipping wind, but the view was spectacular, overlooking the San Adreas fault.

On our way back to camp, we found some flowering and fruiting Joshua Trees!

The forest is sparse, but quite pretty with the sun hiding behind a cloud.

Alright, camp is all set up, we're ready for a quiet, relatively warm, 40°F night!

Or not...

Turns out, the night was actually getting down to 20°F with 2 inches of snow. In a desert. In southern California. In March. The cold refuses to stop chasing us!

We weren't about to pack up a tent covered in snow, as that's a recipe for mold to grow and a miserable night next campground. So instead we decided to hike to Arch Rock and Heart Rock.

It was frigid, as you can tell by Sara getting all bundled up with her jacket.

The arch was really beautiful. We didn't quite catch it at sunrise to get the sun through the arch. However, the shadow work the sun was doing was spot on.

From there, we headed over to Heart Rock and got some great photos from a friendly hiker.

Heading back, the hike was almost as windy as Death Valley was, but it was far far colder. It was not a particularly fun hike, but the views did a lot to bouy our spirits.

After the Arch Rock hike, we decided we were done with hiking that day. So we headed out of the park to search out an Oasis in town.

The Oasis was unfortunately pretty dry since the water table has dropped since it's discovery and lots of water usage for livestock in the area. The National Park Service actually has to pump water in to keep the Oasis fed.

From there, we started heading toward Saguaro National Park, but got distracted on the way by the Arizona Rennaissance Festival outside of Phoenix.