Joshua Tree

We had a restful night at the 29 Palms Inn. The coyotes here are lippy buggers though. They were having some sort of hootenanny last night. You just had to know their celebration was bad news for someone else.

We we woken with the desert dawn by a huge flock of California Quails (also called Gambrel's Quail I believe). They were amazingly cute with little dangling feathers on their heads running around, bobbing, weaving and generally making a racket. we figured since we were up, we might as well get going, seeing as the sun was actually shining. We ate and drove into Joshua Tree National Park looking for a hike. Yesterday I bought a Joshua Tree hiking map and today it paid for itself. It's funny, there are lots of hiking trails on the map, but none of them seem to be sign posted at the road. We had a fabulous hike. We just walked up a wash into the mountains, looking for the mine that was the genesis of the hike. We never did find the mine site, but we had a fabulous hike. We even saw a Bobcat. My first ever Bobcat sighting. I also saw a Jackrabbit and a few Antelope Ground Squirrels.

By the time we turned around an headed back we we kind of amazed at how far we went and how long we were gone. It was just so pleasant hiking along the wash looking at the flora and trying to see the fauna. Keep in mind the whole time there is spotty sunshine. Not too bad we thought. We drove through part of the park between 29 Palms and Joshua Tree (the town, not the park). There were fields of Joshua Trees some of which actually looked like trees once they got big enough. We also did a short interpreted trail that disclosed the existence of a desert oak and the pine tree from whence pine nuts fall. The landscape here is beautiful and surreal. My DH and I find we actually like it, unlike our previous desert experience which was Mojave/ Chihuahua in Texas.