We ate the no-cook oatmeal which turned out great even if I did forget one ingredient. Carol loved it. We picked up my National Geographic guide to the national parks and my parks passport and headed off to the south end of Joshua Tree park. First stop was Cottonwood Spring visitor center where we picked up a map, bought some post cards, and
had a chat with the parks volunteer ranger. As we drove along the Pinto Basin Road, there were pull-offs regularly. Being fresh, we pulled off at all of them, got out, walked around and took photos. The south end of the park is in the Sonoran Desert which has certain types of plants and cacti, like yucca, collas, and an invasive wild misletoe whose red color makes them stand out in the brown desert. The high point of the drive thru the Sonora was the cholla cactus garden. There were thousands and thousands of cholla stretching for miles down the canyon. We walked along a wide path lined with stones, and discovered that the cholla were getting ready to bloom. We were about a week too early.
We also discovered that the cacti "sing" in the wind. I tried to capture the song they make in a movie. The 40 second video doesn't really capture the musicality of the wind thru the cacti.
We also stopped at Pinto Mountain basin, which is a wide, flat area at the base of the mountains that used to have a river that sustained herds of camel, elk, buffalo, and rabbits. There was also an ancient Native American tribe that called that valley home. Now it is just barren desert and no one lives there. We were fascinated by how much the physical space has changed over 9,000 years.
We tried to stop and take a 0.3 mile hike to a natural rock arch, but there was no parking anywhere, so we had to pass that feature up.
Next up were the Jumbo Rocks, which looked like the backsides of giant elephants. They were cool rock formations. Lots of kids and teenagers were climbing all over them. At the visitor center, the park had some cards picturing this scene and it was labelled "Homo Sapiens Climberus." We enjoyed the playful sense of humor of the staff. Carol & I climbed up just a little bit and took lots of photos.
Shortly after this, the park changed from Sonoran Desert (at 3,000 foot elevation) to Mojave Desert (at 4,000 foot elevation). The climb was very gradual and we didn't really notice it, but the vegetation started changing and we saw our first Joshua Tree. So, we had to photograph our first one. From then on, we took dozens of photos as the trees changed from one single tree to dozens of trees to hundreds of trees in groves to practically a forest of Joshua Trees. Pat turned into a tree hugger.
We took a little detour off the main road to visit Key View. The view was indeed spectacular, but what we will always remember about Key View is the wind. We had to brace ourselves and lean into the wind and hope that we could get a photo before the wind blew us backwards. One of the other people up there with us said the wind was 70 mph. I would believe it. I have never been in a gale force wind, perhaps until now.
We tried unsuccessfully to find the Hidden Valley trail in my National Geographic National Parks guide. The problem is that there were 3 locations all called Hidden Valley. We walked around at one of them and had fun, but we don't think that was the trail they talked about in my book. That Hidden Valley is where cattle rustlers used to hide their ill-gotten cattle until they could sell them. Being tired and hungry by this point, we opted for dinner in Joshua Tree (the town). With help from the Visitor Center, we ate at Sam's Middle Eastern and Pizza restaurant. I had Naan stuffed with coconut and golden raisins with a honey glaze, and chicken Korma. Carol had a vegetarian Daal. It was excellent! Who knew one could find great food is such a tiny town! On the way back to Indio (we took Highway 62 instead of backtracking thru the park), we stopped in Pioneertown which is about 5 miles north of Yucca Valley on a little windy mountain road. Some of the Skare relatives in my genealogy owned a trailer park in Pioneertown in the 1940s. The whole tiny town is still sort of a replica of a TV set Western town. We stopped at Pappy & Harriet's roadhouse. The roadhouse was packed to the rafters with people. More people than could possibly live in the town or its surroundings. We couldn't find a seat, so we twirled around the place and left.
The drive back on Highway 62 was interesting. We had been gradually been climbing in elevation all day during our drive thru Joshua Tree. Now we were descending in one constant downhill descent that had trucks going 40 mph for what seemed like about 30 miles. The descent never ended! Then we got lost a little trying to get off the freeway (I-10) from the opposite direction we had gotten off when we came into Indio the night before.
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