Joshua Tree National Park–Part II

Thursday, February, 16, 2017

My location: Near the Southern entrance to the Joshua Tree NP

This morning, I was determined to stay home and just rest.  Took our morning walk around the area taking in the quiet morning beauty.

While walking back to camp, Yuma could not resist running over and asking Jodie to come over and play.   Here she comes at full gallop!

I think they like each other.  Is that a little kiss behind the Creosote bush?

We tried laying around, but finally decided to go Jeepin’ and see if we could find the South entrance to the Pinkham Canyon Backcountry Road.

Just as we arrived seven jeeps in a caravan came from the other direction.  This is a 22 mile very rough road where parts require four wheel drive.  I only have a quarter tank of gas and don’t have the strength to take this rough road today.  Maybe I can find a group to tag along with some other day.

I believe Pinkham Canyon is just around the bend before that hill in dead center, but knowing I wasn’t going through, we just turned around and called it a day.

You can tell it is a rough road even in the first couple of miles we traveled.

We decided to drive up the mountain side for a bit just to take a look around.  At the level we were, I could see over Box Canyon and the Salton Sea was beyond it.  This is a zoom shot.  That is I-10 down below in the valley.

Now for more of our journey into Joshua Tree NP.  Yesterday, our blog stopped when we reached the first Joshua Tree.  We will now travel towards the western end of the park.

First thing I notice is there are many more Joshua Trees.  Unfortunately, many have died and there is not a large abundance of new trees growing to fill in the gaps.

The more we travel West, the more boulders we see.

Here is Skull Rock.

We turned onto Keys View Drive

and headed to the top of the mountain overlooking the Salton Sea way to the South, and

the cities of Coachella and Indio to the West in the Coachella Valley, and

Had a drunk guy take this photo.

San Jacinto Peak at 10,834 feet to the Northwest.

That is Joshua Tree NP in pictures.

Cooked my first pork chop for dinner and it came out perfectly.  Can’t wait to cook the other two, now that I’m a professional cook.  The left over corn tasted a little water-soaked, but edible.  I gave away my sack of potatoes the other night to Eric or I might have tried French fries.

Had a beautiful sunset tonight.

See you later.