OK, so I am running out of superlatives now.
I said yesterday that it was sad now that we have done all the “big ticket” items and we have really. Nobody is going to put Joshua Tree National Park above the Grand Canyon or Yosemite but they should and you really really should. It is a real gem.
We spent all day in the park today and it is the most amazing place. Better even than the Grand Canyon and that was pretty spectacular. Partly that is because, I suspect, that all we had time for at the canyon was to stand at the rim and look down. At Joshua Tree you are in it with it all around you and although it is pretty small in area there is so much diverse scenery to see and be part of.
As we walked around the many trails and was wowed once more I did feel a little like a vandal through. This place has stood untouched for millions of years and now we are trampling over it and wearing it down at a faster rate than ever before.
Nevertheless, trample we did as we went to Hidden valley, Skull rock, Face rock, Split rock, Arch rock, Cholla cactus garden and Barker dam.
The cactus garden is a great example of the diversity of the area. It is an area of about five acres in which nothing but Cholla cacti grow and they are found nowhere else in the park. Very peculiar.
By the end of what was a pretty full on day we came back to Joshua Tree the town where we found an Indian restaurant and had a taste of home before returning to the B&B.
Now I am sitting outside our room and there is zero noise or light pollution and if I look up it is so dark that you can see not only many stars but the milky way too.
This is definitely somewhere I would want to come back to again.
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