A Day at Joshua Tree National Park, March 18

 Today was the perfect day to go to Joshua Tree National Park and we had perfectly wonderful day. The park has almost 800,000  acres and was designated a national park by Franklin D. Roosevelt. The western part of the park (where we were) is part of the Mojave Desert. The eastern part is part of the Colorado Desert.
 But, before venturing to the park, we started with a few errands including going to Staples to print the March Madness Brackets for our family competition.
   We went to the Park via Twenty-Nine Palms. Luckily we stopped into a California tourist center and got a very helpful woman who helped us route our way through the park and changed the way we had thought we would go, so that was really good. So, we passed by the nearest entrance and went to the Oasis one a few miles further east.. Mark picked up a sandwich at a Subway and I got a salad to go at the Cafe at one of the park entrances.
       We first drove to a place called White Tank, named for the white granite rocks. There was a short trail to White Tank Arch through a fantastic landscape of giant rocks. (It is also a primitive camp ground and made us both want to do some camping. It would be amazing to be there at night.) There were a lot of hikers there. Mark quite amazingly scrambled up to the arch with his new knee. (I am not a climber, so...stayed below.)  Mark had a little help getting down from a young man who had been in a bad motorcycle accident and who had had 9 vertebra fused just several months ago. Turns out that his girlfriend used to live on Surfside Road and now lives in Harwich. We all had a nice chat.

If you look closely, you will see a black-tailed jack rabbit in the center close to us. They regulate their temperature through their ears.

 

White Tank Arch (looks like an elephant)

Mark in the Arch

 

Barbara, safely below

We drove through miles of Joshua Trees and cactus. Some of them were really large. Joshua Trees are mosty in the Mojave part of the Park. They are not truly trees, but a type of yucca. They can grow to 40 feet, but only add about an inch per year. We were lucky to see them in bloom.

      Then we drove to Keys View where we looked over the entire Coachella Valley and could glimpse the Salton Sea. On a clear day you can see over 90 miles to the Mexican border, but today was not clear enough. The pollution is pulled in through the windy pass where the windmills (2,700) are set up, so it is usually hazy. But, we could see the valley pretty clearly as well as the San Andreas Fault which was very interesting. We were above 5,000 feet of elevation.

View toward the Salton Sea

The dark line in the distance is the San Andreas Fault

   

After that we drove back toward the Joshua Tree entrance to the park, closer to Yucca Valley. We stopped at Intersection Rock to watch people climb the difficult rock face. Quite amazing and heart-stopping.

Look for the 3 climbers!

A close up of two of the climbers

How does that rock stay up there?!

  
 All day the temperature in the park was mostly the 70s while in the valley it was in the mid-90s.
     We got home after 6, went to the hot tub, and then had some corned beef, turnips, beets and split a sweet potato.
      What a wonderful day.