Joshua Tree National Park is located in the middle of Southern California, about equidistant from Los Angeles and San Diego, and was my next destination on my grand circuit.  [In case you’re wondering why I seem to be looping around California instead of heading east, it’s because my brother and sister-in-law are coming to California on vacation at the end of this week, and I’m planning to meet up with them to visit some of the larger National Parks!]

On my way to Joshua Tree NP from San Diego, I passed through Palm Springs, and unexpectedly found myself in the middle of the largest wind farm I’ve ever seen!  If you look carefully at the picture below, you can see hundreds of turbines vanishing off into the distance.  It was in fact the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm, containing 3,218 individual turbines producing about 615 MW of power.  Apparently the pass is one of the windiest places in Southern California, and it certainly was windy when I took this picture, with all the blades turning at once.  The amount of green energy being produced in this country really is impressive.

I proceeded on to Joshua Tree, and spend a leisurely afternoon driving among weird rock formations and primitive looking trees.

Although I had heard of them, I had never seen a Joshua Tree before.  Apparently they’re the largest of the yucca family, and the Mojave Desert is the only place in the world where they grow.  They can grow from 15 to 40 feet high, and 1 to 3 feet in diameter, with a lifespan of about 150 years, and are only pollinated by the female yucca moth, with which they have a symbiotic relationship.  According to legend, the trees got their name from Mormon pioneers, who though that they looked like the upstretched arms of Joshua leading them to the promised land.

I felt a bit more like I was lost in a Dr Seuss book.  The spikes of the trees are very hard and stiff, and I found them to be quite sharp and painful when I bumped into them.  Don’t do that, bad idea.

Joshua Tree is one of those National Parks that you can really see pretty effectively in a half day’s drive through the main road, although there are also plenty of opportunities to hike down side trails to see more unusual rock formations.  I decided to stay the night at Hidden Valley Campground, which seemed to be famous as an old cattle rustling area, it’s large rocks providing good hiding places.  Once the sun started setting, the hot day quickly transitioned to a cool night.

Before I lost the sun, though, this little kit fox came sneaking trough my camp just checking things out.

In the morning I was startled awake by a pack of coyotes.  Although I never saw them, their characteristic yipping was unmistakable, and they were close — they must have been just beyond the brush in front of me.  It’s really kind of a magial way to wake up!

 

 

The desert was beautiful the first thing in the morning, with the sun just rising over the mountains.

I decided that there was no better way to start the day than with a bit of off-roading, so spent some time on the Geology Tour Road 4wd track.  It’s only about a 17 mile loop, and wasn’t particularly challenging, but it was nice to get off the pavement and do some exploring, drinking my morning tea on the side of a hill miles away from anyone.

Going south through the park, you pass from the Mojave Desert into the Colorado Desert, and the character of the two is really quite different and striking.  No Joshua Trees grow in the Colorado, and the land in general seems wider and more stark, the mountains farther away.

The Cholla Cactus Garden is located just inside the border of the Colorado Desert, and is a natural growth area of cholla cacti.  I read somewhere that these are also called ‘jumping cholla’ because of their tendency to get stuck on your clothes as you walk by, but in my short hike through the garden I can’t say that I was attacked in this way.  In spite of being dangerously spikey, however, they were quite attractive plants, nearly green in the new growth near the tips, and graduating in color down to a dark brown near the base.  There was an absolute forest of them too!

And there were beeeeeeeees!  I noticed them near my camp at night, but a sign here explained that bees in the desert are very good at tracking down any moisture, and they can be a nuisance around cars because they’re attracted to things like the condensed water from air conditioners, or even windshield washer fluid.  So yes, I saw a lot of bees.

Some of the place names did leave me wondering about the story behind them.

And this one had me imagining a car wash, but for porkies (it’s so hard to keep them clean…).

Although I wouldn’t call it exciting, Joshua Tree NP was kind of fascinating in the diversity and uniqueness of the plants there, and it had an other-worldly feel to it.

I left the park at the southern end just long enough to get fuel… and ice cream… at the town of Chiriaco Summit, before heading north into the desert again.  But as I was getting fuel I noticed an odd thing.  Tanks in the desert.

It turns out that the General Patton Memorial Museum is at Chiriaco Summit, where he once established a desert training camp.  I like the fact that his dog got to join him for the statue.

I didn’t go in, but it was interesting to wander around and look at the old military vehicles as I ate my ice cream.  I suppose that they’ll last a long time out here in the desert with so little humidity.

But I was on a mission to experience more of the desert at this point, so I pointed the FJ north toward the Mojave again and got back on the road.