Joshua Tree 2 and a change in plans

The next morning I woke up pretty early again (this is becoming a pattern),this time due to more loud boy nonsense from the camp next door. I don't know if they actually slept at all. Anyway, morning in the desert is nice and cool, at least before the sun gets too high in the sky, so I decided to make the most of it and go do something. The day before I had driven past a sign for Key's View, a lookout point where you can supposedly see all the way to Mexico. I was of course intrigued.

So I drove the 20 minutes out to Key's View (still in the park...I told you it was enormous) and walked up the ramp to the viewpoint. I hate to be all jaded but the view, while pretty great, was nowhere near as fantastic as I wanted it to be. It was neat to be able to see the San Andreas Fault, and the mountains were beautiful, but it wasn't quite what I wanted. I did get to see some lizards up at Key's View and on the way back I actually saw a roadrunner (!) so it was still a worthwhile diversion, to be sure. Next I headed over to the Hidden Valley picnic area across from my campsite to check out the 1 mile Hidden Valley nature trail. The ranger had given me a newspaper with Joshua Tree info when I entered the park and one of the pages has a list of all of their trails. There are ten or so hiking trails and about the same number of "nature" trails, which I took to be a euphemism for, you know, your grandmother could walk this trail with no problem. Yes, well, my grandmothers probably could have..they were both tenacious old ladies...but I think most average people would have found the trail a little...challenging. I walk a mile to the gym and back twice a week, so I was all "oh a mile...piece of cake" but I had no idea what it would take to walk a mile over uneven, rocky terrain in the beating down sun. Luckily I had brought plenty of water with me, I had liberally doused myself in sunblock and I had my hat, so all that remained was to take my time and hike that trail.

Despite the unexpected toughness of the terrain, I loved the experience. I saw all sorts of incredible plant life up close, plus plenty of lizards and chipmunks. There were rock climbers on a rock bank in the middle of the trail so I stopped and watched them for a bit. Fascinating...I still may want to take that up one day. It was still early, so nobody else was on the trail for the most part, which was nice. When I got to the end of the trail I headed back to my campsite. I was roasting, the interior of the car was roasting, the sun was beating down on my tent, so I decided it might not be a horrible thing to go into town and do some laundry to escape the heat. So that's what I did. I had seen a laundromat in the town of Joshua Tree just before I entered the park, so I headed over there.

Laundry didn't take nearly enough time and I had no desire to hang out in the sun at that point so I decided to head into Yucca Valley in search of a movie theater. Luckily they had one...I saw a late matinee of The Taking of Pelham 123 which, I'm sorry to say, was one of the most ridiculous movies I've seen in a while, and by the time it was over it was 4pm and the sun was starting to set. I headed back to my campsite, a little irrationally nervous that someone might have either messed with my stuff or just poached my campsite altogether (since that day was a fee free day and the ranger had said it would probably get crazy crowded). Turns out I needn't have worried about what the other campers would do...nature was already messing with me.

When I got back to my site, my tent was gone. For a split second I started to freak out until I realized that the wind had just blown it away and it had rolled behind a giant rock. See, the thing about camping in the desert is that it's hard to stake your tent down. Either the soil is sandy which doesn't do a very good job of holding onto stakes, or, as in this case, the ground is solid rock a few inches down, so you can't drive stakes into it at all. My solution had been to weight the four corners of the tent down with heavy rocks, but apparently they were no match for the wind. That's another thing...it's really windy at Joshua Tree, which is nice when it takes the edge off the heat but not so nice when it's rattling your tent in the middle of the night.

So I managed to pull my tent back to where it should be, observed a few minor tears in the rain fly and scuffs on the tent poles, and reconfigured the whole heavy rock situation. After that I felt nervous about leaving the tent alone again, so I ended up not going to the star party I had been looking forward to. I did get to see the stars you can see with the naked eye, and let me tell you, the night sky in JT is lousy with them. Just exquisite. I sat up with my book and waited for it to get dark, then I spent a fair amount of time stargazing. Eventually I realized I was having trouble keeping my eyes open so I went to bed.

The next day I woke up early, ready to get out of the desert sun and get going, so I packed up my gear and got on the road. The way the park is configured, I could either go north 17 or so miles and leave the way I came, or I could drive down south, all the way through the park, maybe another 40 miles or so. One of the great things about being on a trip like this by myself is that I don't have to be in any particular hurry to get anywhere, so I decided to see the rest of the park. This is an experience I would recommend to anyone, especially at 7am. There are some incredible things to see in the southern part of the park (conversely, if you stay in the south you should take the time to drive up to the north...the vegetation is so different...but gorgeous in both places). Even the rock formations have a different character in the south. Also, I saw quail on my drive through the park...quail! At first it was just one and I was suitably excited but about a mile later I saw a quail parent followed by at least nine little quail babies! So that was definitely worth the extra time it took.

The plan for the day was to drive to Picacho Peak State Park between Phoenix and Tucson, AZ. When I was making this plan, it never occurred to me that a park in the middle of Arizona might be very deserty and hot, but as I got closer to it, I found myself wanting to stop less and less. The temperature was already above 100 and all I wanted at that point was some air conditioning and a bed. So I ditched Picacho Peak and dipped into my reserves to book a hotel room (btw, I pulled the car over and used my iPhone to find the best rate and book the room. Took ten minutes, tops. Such a handy little gadget). Once in the room I took a hard look at my itinerary and realized I needed to make some changes. The whole southern part of my trip would take me through some really hot temperatures and I knew I wasn't going to want to camp in that heat any more than I had that day.

So, change of plans. The next day, instead of continuing west I headed north to Albuquerque. Driving in New Mexico was such a glorious experience...there's never a moment when the scenery isn't beautiful. Also, I got to drive through Truth or Consequences, which was fun. In the end it looks like just another town, btw. Today I'm planning to head down to Roswell and see what all that alien business was about. Tomorrow it's back up to Santa Fe to camp for a few days in the Santa Fe National Forest, then out to Oklahoma City and then to Memphis before hitting Atlanta. Looks like I'll get to see Graceland after all!

xo,
C