Joshua Tree National Park was surreal. It was as if we were visiting the moon. At first, the park seemed empty. Except for the giggles of Alexis, Ryan and Jilber coming from the back seat. Jilber came to visit us in Desert Hot springs, CA for the afternoon and dinner while on one of his work outings to Southern Cal. After driving 20 miles into the park, the vast emptiness that we first felt seemed to stretch on in every direction. We stopped at a few boulder up-croppings to climb. The many Joshua trees speckled the landscape and the sand path twisted through thousands of small 1-3' cactus of many different types. We saw lizards and honey bees and a "Jackelope" running at about 40 MPH down the side of the road. We saw 2 different coyote and some amazing landscape. The desert road crossed from the Mohave desert into the Colorado desert in the middle of the park and the different cactus types changed. The more we explored the more we realized that the desert emptiness was actually filled with all kinds of wonderful and beautiful things. The flowering cactus, the juniper bushes, the amazing Joshua trees reaching up to the heavens, and the red sunset with the moon rising, just made you gaze off with wonder. Although at 107 degrees it was easy to understand how serious it would be to be stranded out there. We laughed and enjoyed Jilber's company for dinner before we settled into our air-conditioned camper for the night.
It was a great day!
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