Joshua Tree National Park

December 30th/06- The Mr. and I spent the day at Joshua Tree National Park. There was quite a group of us, since Uncle R, Sallad and Grace, the Totems from Colorado, Cousin Douggie and some of his family also spent the day with us. This was a full day of driving, but very interesting. The park is made up of two deserts. The Colorado Desert, and the Mojave Desert. Mojave is pronounced "moh-hah-vee" for those who are unfamiliar with it - (as Sallad was.) We had a nice breakfast at R&R's and then went to meet the rest of the gang over at Cousin Douggies place. One of the places we stopped was the Cholla Gardens in the Colorado desert. Cholla is pronounced "choya" and they are some of the craziest plants I have ever seen. The boys read aloud the sign warning them to keep their fingers to themselves, and promptly went to experiment (as you can see in the slide show below.) The Mr. found out how powerful the Cholla really are when he went to kick a tiny ball that had fallen to the ground and it embedded itself in the rubber sole of his shoe. That's sharp!

Once you cross into the Mojave Desert from the Colorado Desert, the scenery changes. The Mojave dessert is home to the Joshua Tree. The Joshua Tree looks like something you would see in a Dr. Seuss book. This area also had huge piles of boulders. Sallad, Grace and the Mr. did some scrambling. They told us that they were going to climb, but I didn't realize that they would actually get as high as they did - or that it was even possible without equipment! As you can see from the photos, they were pretty high! The little line on the top of the boulders is Sallad and the other two are somewhere in the area as well. I didn't go, because to tell you the truth, I was afraid of Rattlesnakes! Shutter!