Touristy Joshua Tree?!

 Again, the wake up this morning was spectacular. The light peeking through the ceiling vent is just enough to wake us up in the morning - no need for alarms. Unzipping the curtain again reveals a magnificent vista, and just how many people are actually park out in this "field" with us! It looks just like any other campground, but the people here are just a bit more friendly, just a bit more polite, and a whole lot more respectful of the location and wilderness they are in. It's a nice feeling camping here, and I am glad that we decided to go this route with what will hopefully be most of our camping options on this roadtrip. I cook up a big batch of oatmeal with a generous dose of frozen mixed berries, and with coffee in hand, we head outside to eat in the light of the rising sun. It colours the surrounding mountains a warm deep orange colour, the blue cloudless sky contrasting nicely alongside. It is going to be a beautiful day.

After breakfast we batten down the hatches - a much more appropriate term in a camper van where everything wants to slide or roll or fall - and we head back into Joshua Tree National Park to visit some more of the area and hike some of the smaller trails available. We head to the center of the park, and the most popular of the natural attraction, Skull Rock, and its accompanying natural trail. Of course, this site is close to a campground, and is a big drawn with families, so the place is packed with people. We head first to the nature trail, lined with amazing rock protrusions, flora, birds, and plenty of climbing opportunities for Mario to expend some energy. Small signs along the way teach us about the plants, the animals, the geology and the ecology of the area, and there are still plenty of little climbs and descents to keep us moving. We snack on trail mix and those delicious dates from Hadley's, which are some of the biggest I've ever seen.

Loggerhead Shrike	Joshua Tree
Scrub Oak

All around us, the monzogranite protrusions get more and more curious in shape, and we take turns trying to point out shapes, animals, faces that we see to each other. Mario spots one that looks like Buddha leaning against a rock - but fat Chinese Buddha, not skinny Southeast Asian Buddha. I spot a sloppy-looking angry monkey, an elephant, and several different faces that seem to morph the closer we get. Across the road now, we can also spot the noteworthy Skull Rock, which from this angle, definitely looks like a skull. We can also see a large accumulation of people in the same area, and know what is to come, so we stay on this section of the trail a little longer, enjoying the calm, the birds, the views. 

The Elephant	The sitting fat Buddha
Skull Rock	Face Rock (dark brown one)

We cross the street and land right in the middle of a crowd, all vying for a spot with the best angle, the best view, the best place in which to pose their kids, their family, themselves. Strangely, the Skull Rock looks less impressive from close up. Less like a Skull. And I begin to wonder if it is anything like visiting Venus de Milo. Once upon a time, in the Louvre in Paris, we came across the Venus de Milo statue, surrounded by the usual crowd of onlookers, trying to jockey for position, trying to get the best photo before moving along to the next famous piece of art. I noticed that barely anyone walked behind the famous statue, and so made my way to the back, with plenty of room, and took a photo of Venus surrounded by her mob of admirers. I also saw a side of the statue that no one thinks to look at, and took pictures that few people have, just by walking a little further and looking at something a little differently. Now this has become a philosphy that Mario and I use frequently when visiting big attractions or popular tourist spots - we try to find the angle that few others have, and appreciate differently. The same goes with the Skull Rock - having followed the trail from the opposite side of the road, having gone the extra mile to take the nature walk, we got to see the massive Skull from a distance, where its features were clearer, and the crowds were slightly hidden from view, and we appreciated more the experience since we were not smushed into a crowd trying to capture the best - and fastest - snapshot. So off we went.

One of the benefits of travelling in a campervan is that we always have everything we need with us at all times, so upon arriving back from the hike, we open the sliding door to allow the warm sun in and admire the view from the side of the road out into the park. I make some wraps, and we sit at the table, eating lunch and enjoying the scenery. We take off our shoes and relax. I even work on the blog a bit. It so nice how the campervan allows us to tune out the rest of the world around us, focusing only on one window, one angle of it, and relax. And then we head on.

Next stop is more of the same as the busy Skull Rock. Arch Rock is, as the name suggests, a rock that has eroded in the form of an arch, resting on top of a pile of similarly-eroded rocks, tucked into a outcrop of monzogranite protrusions. There is a flat, gravely pathway leading into the area, but then a decent scramble to get up to the arch and a steep descent on the other side. People "cue" to take photos under the arch, and someone even starts policing who was there first and who is next to pose under the rocks! Mario and I sneak through to the back side, where we discover that you can climb up on top, and so Mario does, much to the chagrin of the photographers waiting for the perfect shot! I laugh. And we continue to laugh all the way back out of the area, past so many day-trippers, so many ill-prepared visitors, wondering which of the sneaker-wearing tourist will slip trying to climb up into the arch, fall, and hurt themselves.

Mario ruining photos

Arch Rock

Afterwards, we stop at the Cholla Cactus Gardens, named for the cacti that are densely-packed with needles that they look fuzzy, almost huggable. All around us, their spines catch the light in a way that glows white in the sun, like they are all sporting spiky halos. It is truly a beautiful sight, especially this late in the day as the sun begins to dip lower on the horizon. We pull over and take a moment to admire the Ocotillo Patch, a gathering of tall stick-like bushes that, when their leaves are dying, turn brilliant yellow and then red like fire before falling off. This being winter, though, they are mostly just sticks now, but we do spot one in the distance that is a bright canary yellow in colour.

Ocotillo	Mario and the Cholla Cacti
Cholla Cactus Garden

We exit the park just before sunset, stopping at the last campground to empty and fill the tanks on the van. We discover the cap to the grey water hose was left unlocked during our initiation tour, and so somewhere between L.A. and JTree, there is an accordion hose belonging to us. Which also means that emptying the tank just became a whole lot more difficult. We'll figure something out - we always do. Mario is already shopping for them at the next Walmart down the road while I type! 

We pull into the same spot on the BLM land, a little more flat this time, and have just enough time to brew a coffee to catch the last waning beams of the sunset disappear below the horizon. It was another beautiful day in Joshua Tree, and though I am sure we could spend a week here(or more), hiking all the awesome trails, we have to get moving again, because the is so much more of this side of the south to seen, and we have only just begun.