And again, we were off! We couldn’t wait to explore Joshua Tree!

As we started we got the slightest drizzle of rain which made me realize how lucky we really have been with the weather. We only had one rainstorm which was in the Badlands at the very beginning of the trip, and a day in Seattle!

On our first walk in Hidden Valley we met a (not so) little Tarantula.

Next we went to the Barker Dam Trail which was awesome! We saw, yes, a dam with engravings on a rock for the year it was built in 1949.

Here is a plaque that gives some fun facts on the history of the Joshua Tree (or the “Tree of Life”)

Perhaps one of the coolest parts of the hike was seeing the petroglyphs that Native American’s once carved into the canyon walls. Don’t be fooled by the bright colors, however… they have since been re-traced with paint.

Our next adventure was to see the Skull Rock which essentially is just a rock that looks like a skull. Jonah climbed into the right eye. 

The last stop was the Cholla Cactus Garden where we saw rows and rows of interesting looking cactus. I was amazed at how some had three different colors of light yellow, light brown and dark brown all on one plant.

We found a camp spot nearby where we caught a pretty sunset!