Here is the second half of my pictures from our trip to Joshua Tree National Park (on 6/19).
After we left the Keyes viewpoint, we drove back down and found a new area of the park that contained HUGE solid rock formations composed of what seemed to be sand. This was by far my favorite part of the park! I had never seen anything like these before, and the best part was that we could climb around on them. You will notice in many of the pictures, that me and Pat apear as tiny specks, I wanted you to be able to see how small we were compared to these giants. Just sorting through my shots makes me want to go back to this area.
Next we headed to the Cholla Cactus Garden where a large amount of Chollas grow naturally. These were some of the weirdest plants I have ever seen, and not quite what I expected when thinking about cactuses. They were largely hallow and little tumbleweeds of the plant would fall off and float around your feet. Hayden was the first to try and pick one up, and soon had both me and Pat following him. They are silly fuzzy little things.
Since we entered at the North West area of the park, we decided to just drive through the remainder and exit somewhere to the South East towards the Salton Sea. It is truly amazing how much the terrain changed throughout the park as we made our way through it. From desert with loose rocks and plants everywhere, to an amazing viewpoint surrounded by Joshua Trees, to a sandy canyon filled with giant rock formations, to a wide open valley filled with cactuses, back to mountains and a whole lot of wide open space. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and fully intend to experience a sunset and star gazing here one day.
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| [[ joshua tree national park part II: giant rock formations. terrain changes. cholla cactus garden. all photos taken by me & pat in california, june 2012. ]] |
