Day 10: Oh the places you'll go

We started the day nice and early because our host, Connor had to go to work. It was sad leaving Las Vegas because we had such a great time both in the city and just hanging out with the people we met. The group of people we met in Vegas was absolutely phenomenal, and while Las Vegas itself is a great place to be, I don't think we would have had anywhere near as good a time without our new friends. As much as I would have loved to stay, we had to press on and make our way to Joshua Tree National Park.

Mojave Desert road

The ride over was very relaxed, and at only about 4 hours in length, it was a cake walk compared to some of our other drives. We even took a small break along the side of the road to take pictures of some interesting trees (which we later found out were Joshua trees) when we passed through the Mojave Desert. The scenery was beautiful in the desert, and unlike anything I had ever seen before. Tough, ugly vegetation blankets the coarse sandy gravel and jutting rock formations of the Mojave, forming a unique landscape that's as harsh as it is beautiful.

Joshua trees

We got to experience quite a bit more of the Mojave when we reached Joshua Tree National Park, since the entire park is located in the desert. Our first stop was the visitor center where we learned that the Joshua tree is actually only found in the Mojave, and got some tips for some good areas to visit and hikes to go on.

Doing a bit of climbing

Before setting up our campsite, we drove up to Key's Point, a lookout point on one of the tallest mountains in the area where we were afforded a far reaching view of the surrounding valley. Driving through the park itself also offered some spectacular views. The grounds are littered with huge rock formations that look like large smooth boulders. It's almost as if some demented giant decided to make random piles of oddly shaped rocks. In fact everything in the park looks strange enough that it could have been ripped straight from a Dr. Seuss book, especially the park's titular tree with its twisted trunk and spiky leaves that make it look more like a cactus than a proper tree.

Our first adventure of the day after setting up our camp in the aptly named Jumbo Rocks campsite was to explore another well named pile of boulders called Skull Rock. We took a short, but beautiful hike through some other rock formations before reaching Skull Rock, which, as expected, looks like a large deformed human skull-- maybe even belonging to the park's long gone rock curator.

Next we hung around the camp for a bit and relaxed until about an hour before sunset when we hopped in the car to visit the cholla cactus garden, which is an especially lovely place to watch the sun go down. Like everything else in the park, these cacti are twisted, cruel looking plants that seem right at home in the desolate landscape. The dramatic lighting of the almost setting sun made for some excellent photo opportunities, and we spent the next hour just wandering through the deadly garden.

The cholla cactus garden

Joshua Tree Park was an incredible place, and I'd love to come back to explore more of the trails and do some rock climbing, but we only had time for one night, so it's on to Los Angeles in the morning.