Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree national forest in Southern California (new state for us!) is by far the prettiest and most peaceful part of the trip. We spent two days there and had an extremely relaxing time. We had our own Joshua tree right in our campsite. This is really high desert country so we spent most of our day trying to stay hydrated and in the shade. We got a tip from one of the rangers when we arrived about this campground called Jumbo Rocks, and you can see why! She said that there might be some afternoon shade here. We were really happy, there were very few people around all weekend and we could just relax and let the desert sort-of wash over us.




We found a little alcove where we could put the tent and get a little shade from the "trees" (really more shrubs) inthe afternoon and the jumbo rock in the morning. It was the perfect place. Because there was really no thought that there would be any rain, we left the rain fly off of the tent and had a view of the sky when we woke up in the morning, but more spectacular was the view of the night sky. Our second night there, we went to a star party - members of the local andromeda club hauled out their GIANT telescopes and set them up for us to look at planets and galaxys. It was pretty cool to see saturne so clearly that it looked fake! But later that night looking through the roof of our tent we could make out several constelations AND a swirly galaxy. Beautiful. We hated to leave, but there were those seveal hours of the day where you couldn't do anything but follow the example of the lizards and hide in the shade!