For whatever reason, last August I decided it was time for a visit to Joshua Tree National Park. It definitely wasn't the right time of year to visit such a place, but we ended up having such a wonderful time! We stayed in a quaint little motel (read: trashy desert roach motel), ate at a local favorite bar and grill (read: vegan hippie hangout) and took far too many pictures of the cool stuff (read: cool stuff but also a funny caterpillar scurrying across the highway). I'm actually dying to get back there this fall and hopefully do some camping.


There is a place called the Ocotillo Patch where there are literally hundreds (maybe thousands?) of them growing in one specific place. It was pretty amazing.



In this particular part of the world, you can actually drive through and experience the change from the higher, Mojave desert to the lower, Sonoran desert. What makes that special? Well, besides the obvious change in vegetation and landscaping, the temperature quickly rises about 20 degrees. And I mean quickly. It's this change in altitude that allows specific little "patches" of plants and cactus to grow there and nowhere else.

Another of those little patches is Cholla cactus "forest". Kinda scary to walk through but extremely interesting just the same.



There was a path winding through the cholla forest and believe me, it's not a path you'll stray from!!!

The thing that makes Joshua Tree National Forest so famous, are the rock formations. It's a rock climbers paradise and when you're there, you feel like you're in the world of Fred Flintstone. I am quite certain that my first exposure to this park 15 years ago affected me so deeply that when I came back to the high desert, living near the rocks was a subconscious definitive.




And, yes, there is a lot of wildlife, even in the desert. Bighorn sheep love it!



And, last but not least... there were so many of these, grossing me out, that we had to stop and take pics of one that was desperately trying to get across the road without becoming a fried caterpillar. He obviously made it to the other side, and I captured a shot as he was scurrying to get away.



So the moral of THIS story? If you've never been to Joshua Tree, you MUST experience it at least once in your life. It's amazing.