Fine day in the Joshua Trees

Joshua Tree NP was spectacular today. Here I'm in Hidden Valley, a magical spot in the park. It's at an elevation of around 4000 feet, and it's almost like a lost world; a valley surrounded by big rocks and virtually isolated from the outside world. It's one of those places that could be a setting for contemporary dinosaurs in a scifi movie. There's a mixture of life zones here. In the middle of the valley, exposed to the sun, are your typical Joshua Trees. But on the sides, next to the rocks, are oak trees and pinyon pines, relics of a cooler era during the ice age, surviving here in shady areas just yards from the Joshuas. In fact, there were patches of snow in such places today, surviving from a storm last weekend.

One thing you quickly notice in the park is that the mountains are simply mounds of rocks. They don't seem to be composed of one big mass of rock, or to have any dirt on them; they're just rockpiles. These are quite funky, actually, and very photogenic. If I recall, the mountains were originally large masses of stone but millennia of freezing and thawing broke them up.

Joshua Tree is one spot I've marked for a Monday-Friday trip. Now that I'm retired, I reckon it will be cool to hit the road on journeys around the region during that time frame, when the crowds are gone; leave Monterey on Monday, drive to an interesting area, explore it Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and go home on Friday. I'm fortunate to live in a place where there are dozens of such spots.