Our Trip to Joshua Tree NP

We took a trip out to Indio, CA and made the drive in to the Joshua Tree National Park.  Yes it was mostly because I am a fan of U2 and they have an album called Joshua Tree an it has a Yucca aka Joshua Tree on the cover of it.  So I wanted to be a little hip and cool for a bit!  Well cool doesnt describe the weather in the Mojave Desert which is where Joshua Tree NP is.

We started out sort of early getting to the park about 11....hey that's early for us OK?!  We wanted to get through some driving before it got hot.  The forecast was for 103 degrees.

Since I was worried about our car overheating I insisted we drive up to Keys View first.  You can see the whole valley, the San Andreas Fault, Sultan Sea and the US/Mexico boarder (Signal Mountain).

 We then drove back on our way out stopping at places.  Here we stopped at the old Gold Mine Trail.  This leads to an old abandoned gold mine.  We decided one grandma, one pregnant woman, one toddler and 2 kids couldnt make a 6 mile hike in that heat.  So we check out the sign!

 We then drove to Hidden Valley Trail.  This is where the old horse thieves would take their loot and hide among the rocks here.  It was a much shorter trail.  It was quite fun.  Boy did we not know what we were getting in to.

 This boy is funny.  He wanted to walk all by himself...until he got to hot that is and until he skinned his knees a few times.  Then he was ready for the stroller.  Problem is that it was quite rocky in spots so a stroller didnt really work.

This is how I ended the hike with this little boy.  Being carried in his chair like some kind of rich and powerful sultan.  He was laughing and saying up....down when ever we got to rocky or smooth parts.

 My Baby J found two little caves in the rocks above.  He pointed them out to all of us because we missed them.  I was impressed that he was actually looking around at nature.

 Stop for some shade...one of the more generous spots for shade on the hike...under a joshua tree.

 At the beginning of the hike we all were excited just to get out of the car.  Equipped with hats and water we were ready to embark on the hot and dusty trail of cattle thieves.

Here we all are at the beginning of the hike....just wait a second and see what happens.

 Here we at what we thought was the end of the hike...turned out to be more like 3/4ths the way in.  Throwing our heads back saying "Ahhh, its so hot".

 Even the little ones got tired and too hot.  This was the most shady spot on the hike, provided by a huge bolder.

 After the hike we had grandma and pregnant wife ready to pass out, tired kids and everyone was over heating, thirsty and very hungry.  So we drove out of the park.  Look at how remarkable it is that the trees grow so evenly spaced and practically in rows...all on their own.

On the way out we hit a trading post up and found some delicious candy.  Yep, catcus candy.  Comes from the prickly pear and sugared like peach gummy rings only tastes more like pear.

 I also was amazed at the delicious variety of candies they had.  Ant, cricket, meal work and scorpion.  Yep real bugs in the candy.  This one is a real scorpion in an amber candy.  The stinker was taken off obviously.  The candy was eaten around the scorpion but no one ate the scorpion.

 My cute little yuccas up against a yucca tree!  They were good sport to drive so much and hike in the hot hot desert!