Last weekend Jay and I headed east for a day trip to Joshua Tree National Park. We had been looking forward to seeing this park for some time, and since the desert flowers and cacti were blooming this seemed like a great time. The trip takes about 2 hours from Los Angeles, so we left early around 8 am. The picture above is of the Cholla cactus garden. The spines of these cacti appear very soft, but if you brush against them they will release dozens into your skin. They will penetrate quite deeply, and are painful to remove. This is just one aspect of the park, however, we found the landscape within the park is amazingly diverse.
This is just one example of some of the rocks and outcroppings we saw. Since this was a day trip, we didn't spend any significant time exploring any one area. We hiked through the cacti gardens, climbed several large rock formations, figured out what exactly a Joshua tree is, and drove through the geology trail. We are looking forward to a longer trip when we can discover some of the oases and abandoned mines.
And here we are, resting atop one of the walls we scaled at Hidden Valley. There were some very serious rock climbers there, we only climbed the smaller ones! The weather was fantastic, sunny and in the high 60s. Later this summer the Mojave will be sweltering. We ended the day with dinner at the 29 Palms Inn, and drove back to Los Angeles.This weekend was much quieter. We hung out around Westwood Village (UCLA), then Sunday we visited the Venice farmer's market and did our chores. Jay is washing dishes now!
