Joshua Tree

 1/29- Joshua Tree National Park 

   As you may realize I don’t have any internet tonight so I will drop this in the next chance I get but until then …

    We started the day driving through some lush farm land. We saw groves upon groves of oranges, almonds, and olives. Lemons were there also but curiously no limes. The rolling hills were just covered with food. The impressive thing to me is the scale of these operations.  This is where the food on my table comes from. 

    Next on the trip we came up over the hill and what do we see but tons of metal crows all pecking slowly at the ground. I’m talking of course of oil wells. It would be one thing if they put them in a pasture or something but it just looks like raped earth. 

    Now we are climbing up the mountains and as we look ahead the snow on the tops keeps moving down while we are going up. At the crest we see hundreds of big windmills under a thick blanket of white. Uhoh! We stopped for fuel and there was snow on the ground. Of course it was 50 degrees but hey. 

    The next climate change we endured was crossing the Mojave desert. It is beautiful in its way but after the first 50 miles or so it gets kind of tedious. It was very flat with sage brush and the occasional Joshua tree the only things to break the vista. Actually there are a lot of neat plants out here I only wish I knew something about them. One thing I do know they are very good at defending themselves. There are thorns and prickles everywhere. 

    We finally pulled into Joshua Tree NP and got a campsite at the Jumble Rocks campground. We had several campgrounds to choose from but Jumble Rocks sounded like a cool one and it did not disappoint. We are tucked under a formation of boulders that are all rounded off and piled high. All the campsites are amongst these boulders. I can hear the coyotes whistling and screeching outside now. It truly a desert experience. 

    We will be here again tomorrow night and so because there is no internet here I will dump these when I can but they may be several days Late

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