Joshua Tree

Before the government shutdown (luckily) we went to Joshua Tree for the first time. We went with another couple, Dorian an Elizabeth, and their adorable dog, Rocco. It was a great trip and easy planning. She is a vegan and he's vegetarian, so it was fun to come up with food ideas instead of frustrating. Yay for vegans!

Anyway, back to the Joshua Trees! We had originally planned to go dispersed camping, but we wouldn't have been able to have a campfire due to the high fire warning. We skipped the campground "camping" and decided to rent a cabin from Airbnb, a great place to find fun places to stay. 

Our house was two miles from the park entrance and two blocks from downtown Joshua Tree. We were also on a hill, so the view from the backyard was pretty awesome in and of itself. 

Saturday we got up, eventually (hey it's the weekend!), and made our way into the park. Apparently there was a big storm recently that washed away some of the roads and caused them to close down some of the camping sites.

The rock formations we saw were awesome. They looked as if a giant had walked around making carin formations. What really caused the "piles" to form was a lot of science. Way, way back when, lava rocks pushed their way through the ground into the looser dirt. Eventually wind and water eroded the dirt leaving only the rock piles precariously balancing on each other.

What I find truly amazing about them is that over all these years some of the small or seemingly awkwardly placed rocks are still holding on to their domination at the top.

Since we had Rocco with us we were a little limited on where we could go. We ended up walking out to a camping area that was closed off because of the storm damage and had the place to ourselves. Rocco was able to run around like crazy, it was so cute.

We did a little low level bouldering, if you can call climbing round rocks bouldering, and we were treated with an amazing view of the valley. It was cute watching as Elizabeth and Dorian attempted to get Rocco to jump up on a rock for the first time.

Unfortunately, Dorian twisted his ankle a bit on the way down and was taken out of commission for a while. Luckily, it wasn't anything serious and he just needed a good rest. It was probably a great thing we didn't go dispersed camping, because icing his ankle would have been rather difficult.

Dan and I decided to walk up to the ruins of an old ranch that was close by. It was hard to spot from our perch on the boulder, but once we saw it it was impossible to miss. The walk itself wasn't that bad, I think it was two miles to the ranch, so four miles round trip?

The ranch was owned by the Ryan family who came out west in the 1890s to raise cattle and work in a nearby mine they eventually acquired, Lost Horse Mine.

Sadly, there was some graffiti on the inside of the adobe showing how no matter where you go people try to destroy things, because I really care that so and so came here in 2012.

The family left the ranch in the early 1900s after the area became a national park and they were no longer able to raise cattle, do to the restrictions said park entails.

I tried to imagine how someone could have raised cattle in such a dry environment. I guess cattle can survive on even the driest of shrubbery.

While the view from the remaining structure was beautiful, I could only imagine how hot and miserable it would be in the hot summer, wearing the full garb expected of a lady back in the day. Perhaps Mrs. Ryan wasn't too picky on being seen as a proper lady, that or she was constantly drenched in sweat.

Oh, the randomness of my imagination.

On our walk back to the campsite we saw a good bit of desert wildlife, a black lizard, crickets of some kind, Rocco, and quail! I love quail and was really excited when I was able to point them out to Dan.

We tried to walk up to them just close enough to get a good picture, but of course they fled instantly and were much too quick for me to get anything decent enough to put on my blog. So we walked back to the car and I navigated us to our next stop in the park.

We drove out to the main vista point, which I believe is the highest point in the park you can drive to. It overlooked Palm Springs, which unfortunately you could barely make out because of the smog. Yum. But it was a beautiful site none the less. Maybe in the spring its a clearer view.

I believe Palm Desert is on the left and Palm Springs is on the right in my photo below.

We decided to drive down into Palm Springs to check out the river (which was dry!) and the hot springs. I was also interested in just driving through Palm Springs, seeing how I've never been there before. I noticed there was a lot of grass and golf courses. Seems strange for a desert!

We ate at a vegan restaurant in Palm Springs, Native Foods, which is also in Culver City, and oh so yummy and stopped at the grocery store for some forgotten supplies and junk food. We then drove around the town of Desert Hot Springs, assuming that we would be able to go to a hot spring. Apparently, all the hot springs were bought up by spa companies and unless you pay, you can't see them. That was a bummer, and pretty lame if you ask any of us. We decided to head back and chill at our pad; BBQ and hang out in the backyard.

On our way back to our place we stopped at a corner hippy store in downtown Joshua Tree to get some firewood. It was a fun little store and I couldn't resist getting some Nag Champa incense and a green wish bracelet, which has yet to fall off despite Batman's attempts at chewing through it. Little stinker. 

We roasted veggies on the grill and by the time we finished our meal it was dark enough to make a fire. My favorite part! It was a tad bit windy, but that didn't bother me. We made a fire, but the smoke started to get to everyone, but me, so I soon had the fire to myself. It was very peaceful. I watched the moon rise for a while and just enjoyed not being in the city and out in, well almost, the woods. It was not quite a full moon, but it was bright enough to make star gazing hard, so I soon headed inside as well.

We made a small fire inside, where there was what I could have sworn was a hand made adobe chimney. Our attempts at making a large fire were unsuccessful and we eventually gave up and went to bed.

In the morning we made pancakes! Nothing better than pancakes in a cabin. It was a bit tricky because they were gluten free and took all of our coffee creamer and some water to get them moist enough. Sheeh, talk about desert pancakes! Womp womp.

Dan and I decided to go back into Joshua Tree and go on a hike, so we said our goodbyes and headed out. We decided to go up to the Lost Horse Mine and check out the remnants left behind. It was a longer hike than the day before and since it started in the valley and made its way up and over a mountain ridge, we were treated with some amazing views. I also noticed that the Joshua Trees tended to stay down in the valley, while the smaller bush version were more plentiful on the hillside.

There was a large portion of the hill that had obviously been burned by a semi-recent fire, but already there were signs of life returning. Some of the plant life even looked to have survived the ordeal almost unscathed.

The only real wildlife we saw was crows, lots of them too. At one point they were circling around us and we laughed that we were in a Hitchcock movie, quickly picked up the pace, and moved on. Other than that, we saw a couple of lizards doing push ups and an impressive spider's web, but no spider.

The mine itself wasn't all that great. What parts were left were behind a fence to keep hikers safe, but made for some lousy pictures. We sat for a minute, ate a snack, and then made our way back to the car. 

The weather was absolutely perfect for a hike and we were so luck to not have to share the path, except when passing people going in the opposite direction.

We felt as if we had the whole path to ourselves and we were a bit confused when we got back to the car and the parking lot was full. Where were all these people? Not on the trail and I didn't see anywhere else to go.

We ate a light lunch of random things we had leftover in the car and, of course, a nice warm beer. Mmmm, nothing better than a room temperature beer after a long hike.

On our way out of the park I insisted Dan stop in a parking lot so I could take a quick photo of a cool rock and we were lucky to find it was a flat loop that talked a bit about the park, trees, and wildlife. It was nice to get one more minute of nature in before we headed back into the city. 

Well, looks like no matter how hard I tried to ramble on, I still didn't write enough to incorporate all the pictures I was hoping to. So here are some more photos to enjoy.