Parks - Part IX

November 8, 2022

As we made our way toward Joshua Tree National Park, we took the optional route, avoiding interstates as much as possible. We love traveling this way. Our route took us through Victorville, CA, where we had a glimpse of the Route 66 piece of our adventure. We drove through the desert north of San Bernardino.

At first we were nearly speechless at the amount of trash, garbage and cast-offs we saw along the roadsides. I amused myself by creating and furnishing my "trash house"- a cast-off pickup truck camper top. Before we were through, I had a sofa, a love seat, and an arm chair for the living room, a chair, refridgerator, and a table for the kitchen. I had a toilet, and had begun to add outdoor furnishings and a full wardrobe before I quit the game.

As we neared Joshua Tree, it began to rain, then shine, then pour buckets of rain again. We were blessed by several huge, brilliant rainbows before we ran into flooded spots on the road. They became so deep, we pulled over and waited it out. One of us wasn't at all relaxed as our little white turtle van forged the waters. I voted in favor of stopping for a while. Prayer happened. We always pray, but this was one of those times when we didn't say "Amen". We just kept the line open.

it rained buckets...

... and then gave us huge, intense rainbows

We had enough signal to see an alert where communities near us were being advised to be ready to evacuate. Yikes. The rain finally stopped, things calmed down, and we worked our way into the park. We made a quick stop at the Visitor Center for information, our NP Passport stamp, our map (I'm collecting them), our post card and the hat pin for the map in our camper van.

I really thought Joshua Tree would be a few rocks and some very interesting trees. Silly, silly me. Of course there are long hikes and trails, but from any stopping point along the road, walks, trees, rocks and desert are right there. The rocks are balanced so precariously, look so tumbled, they look like Beanstalk Jack's giant's wife finally had her little boy and had just called him in from playing outside. They just tumble.

a rainy start, but fun driving through the rocks

being blessed by a Joshua Tree rainbow...

... which brightened into a double

just love these trees

camped in the puddles under the rocks

We camped for the night, it rained more buckets, the wind howled and shook the camper. (Surprisingly, it was like being rocked to sleep. We slept well.) No rocks tumbled. In a still-raining lull, during a necessary dog outing, Jerry called for me, "Marsha, you need to come out here," in a tone of voice that made me nervous. No need. He pointed and there it was - a moon rainbow. The full moon was in the east, and a rainbow against the rocks right behind us was clear as a daytime rainbow. I've never, ever seen a night rainbow. A moon rainbow. Pure magic.

We'll never forget our time in Joshua Tree National Park.