san diego - joshua tree national park - part 3

We spent a very long day at Joshua Tree National Park, which is almost a 3-hr drive from Jess & Dave's house. On the way there we drove through a large section of highway surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of windmills--as far as you could see. It felt like we were in a sci-fi movie.

We stopped at a town before the park entrance for some iced coffee and smoothies. This mural was painted on the outside of the coffeehouse. Yeehaw!

Only in a western desert town...

A rather interesting little house just outside Joshua Tree. There are actually quite a few houses leading up to the park.

Joshua Tree National Park--aptly named for all the Joshua Trees. Supposedly the Mormans named the trees when they came through on covered wagons. The trees reminded them of the story of Joshua lifting up his hands to God during battle. Some spots were really thick with the trees.

It was interesting to see the scenery change as we traveled through the park. At first there were tons of Joshua trees and mountains like piles of rocks. As we continued on the mountains became more mountainous with large boulders, and the Joshua trees disappeared.

We saw this big old jackrabbit. His ears were HUGE!

At one point we pulled over because I wanted to paint. My painting was a disaster--don't try to paint with watercolors when you're in the desert and it's 107 with a strong hot breeze! What was I thinking?! The paints kept drying before I could do anything with them. While I was 'painting' the others climbed up the rocks.

Throughout the park there are all kinds of hikes and trails you can take. We went on a mile hike to an old dam. Not more than 10 feet down the trail, we met this fellow slithering across the pathway...


Oh, I'd guess he was 5 or 6 feet long. I looked it up and I think it is a red coachwhip.

While there we saw mountain sheep--that's what the little freebie guide called them. I thought they looked like goats, but they say they are sheep. We were excited about this because apparently it's very unusual to see them. We got to watch them eating for a while, which was pretty cool. It was a male, 2 females and a baby. We watched them finally bound away up the rocks--impressive!

the head honcho

pink cactus!