Third desert helpings anyone?

Oh no, just us? After coming off trail we had to decide what to do with our newfound time and we thought "Who needs dessert? Just bring on the desert". P.S. Thanks to Barbi Griffith for helping me with my punny spelling.

Of course we picked up the Beaver Lodge in El Paso, canceled our stay at the storage facility, went out pokemoning for the Muriep event (this photograph was taken at one of the El Paso branch campuses), and then headed out towards Petrified Forest National Park. Unfortunately before we could see the Petrified Forest we had to literally backtrack our last 24 hours so we could pick up my new hiking shoes and our food box in Pie Town.

So I'm sure you all recognize this bar. It's the one where we were doing Karaoke last night. We had to drive directly back through Magdalena to get to Pie Town. On our way through, I insisted that we make a stop at what is known as an ex-ghost town.

Two miles from Magdalena is the town of Kelly.... Re-established in 2012, population two, what house could possibly be for sale?!

We drove into town and found that there was one church for the only house in town… I wonder what Sunday service is like there?

We got back on the road and headed towards Datil. On the mainroad we passed the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). located in between the towns of Magdalena and Datil and run by SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). I'm going to keep my disparaging "aliens don't phone home" commentary silent at this point, but if you are staring at this picture and wondering why it seems so familiar to you, you're not crazy. It is a science fiction icon that has been featured in movies such as Contact, Independence Day, and Terminator Salvation.

Finally we reached the tiny Post Office at Pie Town. It's always a bit nerve-wracking because you're never 100% sure that your boxes have arrived, but this time ours did! I was ecstatic to get my new shoes because I really needed ones that were at least half a size larger. I may not need them for the CDT now, but I will for a lot of other hikes we're going to go on.

One of the reasons I was so disappointed not to make it to Pie Town on the CDT is that I had been looking forward to staying in the Toaster House, which is a free-donation run hostel for CDT hikers. Before we got there Mike and I had speculated what the name really meant. Was it named this way because the last name of the people who used to own the house was Toaster? When we got there we found out that it's because people have tied tons of toasters from every era all over the outside of the house. Anyway I had really looked forward to staying here and am very glad that we got to drive by and see it.

Just after midday we finally arrived at Petrified Forest. We had no idea what to expect because we had had two very conflicting reports about how we would enjoy this National Park. The first really positive thing happened as we learned about the hikes in the park. Usually Rangers do not EVER want to help you boondock camp, but here they were super nice. They told us that if we parked by the sign you see here, we may or may not get kicked out, depending on who's on sheriff duty; but if you drive all the way to the other end of the park there are 2 rock shops that will allow you to use their parking lots. Of course they gave us the usual spiel about there being no facilities, but who cares! Free camping.

The other good thing was that we had a half day to go the 26 miles through the park. We started out by seeing some of the viewpoints, which reminded us tremendously of Badlands National Park. It's amazing that, once you've been out here, everything reminds you of something else. It's really hard to see something that's brand new.

This petroglyph is one of the coolest ones in the park. It was picked up by a Civilian Conservation Corps worker as they cleared an area of debris. Supposedly it is a mountain lion, though I'm not sure why he has so many distinct toes.

Petrified Forest National Park is the only National Park that has Old Route 66 running through it. They have a memorial to this fact in the middle of the park, although Old Route 66 was rerouted around the park a few years after its founding.

Another vestige that shows that Route 66 passed through here is the Painted Desert Inn. In its almost 100 years overlooking the Painted Desert, the inn has undergone many changes. The original 1920's building was made of petrified wood, then you can see that in the 1930's it was re-faced in Adobe. Now it simply serves as a museum highlighting the building's history, Route 66, and the CCC. There are also restored murals by Hopi artist Fred Kabotie. You can see one above.

Then we passed by what is going to be my favorite hike in the park, the Blue Mesa Loop., We were really just doing some of the small stuff and trying to get to the bottom of the park, so we agreed to come back and do this one tomorrow. Ended up being lucky that we did because when we got to the area to camp in, we found that there were only 2 or 3 spots left.

I assume that you've noticed that we haven't actually seen any petrified wood… That's because the vast majority of it exists only in the Southern portion of the park. Essentially, an enormous series of log jams happened 211 to 218 million years ago, which caused thousands of logs to get stuck, become buried, and eventually petrified.

Here is one beautiful example. Just like the rocks in the area, anything that is red is red because of iron or magnesium deposits that oxidized. The white is the plain quartz, and other minerals such as carbon can add black and, rarely, chromium makes it green. There is a wonderful walk called Giant Logs that is just outside the Southern visitor center that gives you a view of tens of thousands of pieces of petrified wood.

Next we did a remarkable walk to a place called Agate House. The ancient Pueblo people also lived in this area and this was built during the Pueblo 2 or Pueblo 3 period. Obviously it is a structure that is made out of petrified wood.

If you take a look around, you can immediately see that this would clearly be the best building material choice. I know that the logs look like they've been intentionally cut, but they haven't. They are made mostly of quartz and silica and thus are very hard but very brittle. The pressure of the Earth on top of them caused them to crack.

Luckily not all of them have cracked, and this remarkable bridge has been saved. Of course you're not allowed to walk on it, but it does make for awesome pictures. Unfortunately it is over a stream and at some point a flood will be bad enough to wash it away.

As you can see, we came back to do the loop through Blue Mesa. I love this section of painted desert because it is so differently colored from so much of the Southwest. Interestingly, the mineral make-up here is very similar to other places in Petrified Forest, but the water table here was so high that when the oxidation of the minerals occurred it turned them blue/violet rather than the more common reds and oranges.

There are also mushroom/toadstool formations here. This one formed when a piece of more dense rock protected a section of less dense rock, protecting it from eroding. All in all we really enjoyed our time in this National Park. I guess it goes to show that you should simply visit everywhere and make up your own mind. I'm glad that we didn't take the 50% of advice that said this wasn't worth the stop.

Welcome to Canyon De Chelly (də-SHAY). The name Chelly is a Spanish borrowing of the Navajo word Tséyiʼ, which means canyon or, more precisely, inside the rock.

As you travel to each lookout it becomes apparent why the area would be named as it is. Here you can see Spider Rock, which is one of the most famous formations in the National Monument. It is named this way because the local tribes believe that the taller of the two spires is home to Grandmother Spider.

Since this is a National Monument and not a National Park, some of the cliffs are significantly unmarked. This is the kind of place where you take personal responsibility or you pay the consequences. See sign above 😂.

The entire National Monument is within a Navajo reservation. This means that many Navajo people still live their normal lives with all of the visitors around them. You can see that there is still farming in the valley of this canyon! Also later on we ran past a flock of sheep that are grazed in and out of the Canyon.

They have also done a wonderful job preserving the ancient cliff dwellings. Sadly this is the only hike in the entire National Monument that you cannot do without a Native American guide. Of course, because Mike and I don't like to be lead around by the nose, we did not take any tours.

After Canyon De Chelly we drove to Page, Arizona. Mike couldn't wait to see Horseshoe Bend since we left, and here we are! Unfortunately we realized that this is really a midday-to-early-afternoon shot. It's amazing how many things you don't know until you get there. Not that it mattered because we were both so excited that right after this photograph we were heading back to Kaibab National Forest. East rim of the Grand Canyon here we come!

Now we had called the National Park Service to ensure that we were welcome to drive on any of the roads we wanted. They told us to have at it but that they had not yet cleared any of the roads of fallen debris so they couldn't guarantee any particular road would be open. We drove across 25 miles of forest road, only to be stopped 100 ft from our favorite campsite by a big fallen tree...

As you can see, we clearly refuse to take no for an answer!

Once we got to the website I couldn't believe my eyes...there was Mike's knife that he had accidentally left in November, buried in the dirt. Oddly it was no worse for the wear and has been reunited with the Beaver Lodge. Now before you judge, we really did check the weather carefully before we started out on this journey…

Unfortunately even the best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry. When I woke up at 2am there was one inch of snow... I woke up Mike to see what he wanted to do and together we decided to stay and wait it out. Before noon we realized that we'd probably made a mistake…

We had to drive the entire 25 miles out in 3+ inches of snow over forest roads. When we finally got to the end we patted each other on the back for a job well done. Then we looked down the road and realized that on the main highway there was a jackknifed tractor trailer and 5th wheel. Can't begin to describe how grateful we are for our safe drive.

Just before the end of Kaibab National Forest we ran into a beautiful campspot that overlooked a valley with red and white striped rock. I was very happy that this was the way I got to say goodbye to Kaibab. I have no doubt that we will be back to this forest some other day.

One of the best things about getting off the CDT was that we got top-down permits to hike the Left Hand Fork, aka Subway in Zion. I have wanted to do this hike since 2012 and was over the moon about it. Most people who come to Zion never do anything but the valley. There's nothing wrong with that, but there's so much more of Zion to see.

Of course that didn't stop us from doing two of the most touristy hikes! We got on the very first bus at 7:00 a.m. so that we could get up Angel's Landing before too many tourists, many of whom can't climb, attempt to make the ascent. One of my favorite things about the climb is that you get to see Walter's Wiggles. They are 21 switchbacks named after Walter Ruesch, who was the first superintendent for Zion National Park and who constructed switchbacks in 1926.

After Walter's Wiggles you come up to Scout's Landing, which is the place to turn around if you don't think climbing chains on knife edges is a good thing to do in the morning. Here is an example of some of the chain system that the National Park system has put in place. There have been five fatalities on this hike since the chain system went into place.

Here is a picture of me in front of the final summit to Angel's Landing. Once we get to the top we'll be 454 m off the canyon floor.

The 360ﾟ view really makes the hike more than worth it. This is the down Canyon side towards the Narrows, which we'll hike tomorrow.

This is the up Canyon side towards the exit to Zion National Park. At this time of day it definitely affords the better photographs and the better view.

You might think that the way down would be much worse than the way up, but I have to say that this is maybe the only hike I've ever done on which I don't find the down much worse than up.

Before we headed back to the Zion bus, and by that I mean eventually back to the Van, I wanted to do the Emerald Pools hike. There are 3 of them, the high, the middle, and the low, and the last time I was in Zion I enjoyed the hike a lot. Unfortunately the record low rainfall has led to the pools being almost empty.

Also as you can see they're not terribly green either. The reason that they're green at all is because of algae growth, and with limited water and limited water resupply the algae just doesn't make the water the Emerald green that I remember.

Even though we're in the desert there's tons of flora and fauna all over the place. Just have to keep your eyes open or you'll miss it.

I was very concerned about where we were going to stay as we visited Zion. Luckily we found BLM land that was nearby. Can't beat free camping with the cows in your backyard!

Today we're going to hike the Narrows so that we have some idea what the water's going to be like tomorrow when we do the Subway. Today I thought I would wear just my stretchy skin suit to see if it's warm enough. The big downside to this is that I had to ride the Zion bus in a spandex outfit. Not exactly my idea of a good time...

If you ever get a chance to do the Narrows, make sure you don't restrict yourself to the main Canyon. There are so many lovely side canyons to go up and explore, and if you do you even get to do some bouldering.

The side canyons are also much narrower and darker than the main one. They also offer more bio-diversity because once you get up and around this corner you'll actually be on a bit of grassy land in the Canyon, which is very cool.

Here is a picture of us just before Wall Street. That's a section of the narrows where the walls get very close together and it is the most dramatic slot canyon area of the entire narrows.

Here is a picture of Wall Street. I think the boulder should give you an idea of how narrow this section of water is. We enjoyed our walk in this section, but the water does get faster and stronger so you need to be careful with your footing. We saw a lot of crazy people coming through in things like crocs or flip flops! Do yourself a favor; get some decent over-the-ankle footwear!

Getting permits for the Subway is not all that easy in weather in which one would want to be in water for half a day. They give 20 permits ahead of time by lottery, and 20 permits up to 2 weeks before the day of your hike. I was like a kid on Christmas morning when I saw that the Zion website had two lottery permits left over for the 24th of April.

The first few miles of the hike are fairly easy and you traverse over slick rock like this. The only tricky thing is that you have to be able to navigate in the correct direction... If you go too far to the right and go down Russell Gorge, you'll need to do a 92' repel. We didn't have ropes for anything this long!

A little later in the hike we passed an area that I can only imagine looked like the famous Sandstone Wave. It was an enormous seamless chunk of variegated red rock. I know we've seen a tremendous amount of this type of sandstone in our travels, but it never gets old for me.

If you've managed to go in the right direction, this is the very first view that you get of your final destination, the Left Hand Fork of the Virgin River.

There is just one last little obstacle to get around before you get into the Canyon… A 400' almost vertical scramble. You can see that MIke and I have put on our Canyoneering helmets because we were worried that we might kick rocks on each other or ourselves. After you've overcome this drop into the Canyon, it's just 3 short repels to victory. Oh and more swims than I care to tell you in freezing cold water, oh and also three short "drops" that you do without ropes that were, in my opinion, much scarier than the controlled repels.

Here is Mike coming down off the first drop. He did a much neater job than I did. because at the bottom I didn't want to step on a fern so I nearly lost my footing. Luckily I was only 18 inches from the ground at that point, but nevertheless,,, eye on the ball, right?

The hiking in the left fork Canyon is truly beautiful. There's no way to avoid getting wet because you walk in the water much of the way at this point.

This is one of the first places that you take a swim. At this point you are still under the delusion that you can keep some portion of yourself dry. We used dry sacks for all of our gear and they also doubled as flotation devices.

I could not have been more grateful for my 5 mm wetsuit. Before we left I asked a ton of people in the gear shops whether they would wear one or not, and got a 50/50 response. I can't believe that anyone would do this hike at this time of year without one! Oh and the water today was 46ﾟF.

Here is Mike coming down one of the non-technical repels that I told you about. There are 4 of them in a row, and my little legs made it very difficult for me to get a good position.

You might think to yourself, "well why didn't Mike just go down first and give you a boost from the bottom?"… The answer is because the water would have been way over his head, and there's no reasonable way for me to ask him to put his head under so I can use him as a footstool.

Here we are coming up to our second repel.

Here is Mike doing the second repel. It might seem extremely short, but setting up at the top was a bit awkward and notice how he has to kind-of swing out to hit the wall to repel down safely. This was probably the one that I thought was the most difficult of any of the 3. Also keep in mind that a fall even at this height would have been bad because the water here was quite shallow.

Can you see why the hike is called the Subway? I waited 6 years and walked 6 miles to see this picture. There are very many things on my bucket list that I think I might be out of luck on, but one down, many to go. Anyone out there want to help me book my trip in outer space? That's another thing on the bucket list.

Here is the third and final repel. It's about 35' down and may look much more intimidating than the previous two, but I felt really good going into this one.

I hadn't mentioned it up until now, but we met a lovely couple in the parking lot when the hike started. It was extremely lucky because we needed to carpool to get to the beginning of the hike. They had come to the starting point with the same hope as us...find like-minded people and put a car at each end. Here you can see Caleb throwing the rope and his girlfriend Hannah standing close to the edge. They were kind enough to let us share their rope on this last repel because it's much quicker than stringing twice.

This is the longest video by far and you finally get to see me do a repel. What happens down the bottom is that my double rope got caught up on the sandstone above. I actually make an enormous mistake in this video that I will never make again, and that is that I let the rope go out of my left hand. Just saying, this is never acceptable! Luckily I didn't pay the price of getting hurt, but I have to say not my most graceful landing.

Once you get down, the fun has only begun! Just to the left of the repel is a waterfall with an enormous cavern behind it. At this point I didn't feel so triumphant that I didn't care about getting soaked.

This is the second area of the Subway that I waited so long to see. The water really is that gorgeous turquoise blue. Touching up of these photos is necessary!

The amazing thing is that once you walk around the corner you see in front of you, you've come out of the top-down portion of the Subway and now you meet the rest of the world. Technically this hike can also be done what is called bottom-up. That means that you hike in from the lower parking area to see just this tiny portion, and then hike all the way back. Of course you miss all of the beauty that you just saw during our hike. I'm not saying it's a hike that's not worth doing, but I am saying that it's worth getting the skills to do it top-down. Not that it wasn't perfect for us because there was no one ahead of us and no one behind us on the top-down hike, so we didn't have any waiting anywhere.

So it's amazing, we went across 3 repels and 4 drops as well as multiple swims and I have to tell you I never felt more scared than I did coming down this waterfall. You can't see it but there's algae all over the red rock and you have to just go through it. I was even worried enough to stick my phone in my bag so that I didn't have to worry about it.

The very last "do not miss" on the way out of the Subway are the dinosaur footprints. I hope you can see it; it's Just to the right of my hand. Very difficult to photograph as the trees were in bloom and the light kept changing, but if you'd been there it would have been much more obvious that something like a raptor walked across this rock hundreds of millions of years ago.

The very last and grueling thing that you have to do on the Subway is hike from the Canyon floor back to the parking area. It's about a 400' vertical rise In 3/4 of a mile and this is the last view you see.

After that we headed into the town of Virgin to see Andy at the Fort Zion gift shop. Perhaps you don't remember him but he drove us back to our van in Gold Butte and we met his park ranger daughter in the Grand Canyon. I like it when things come full circle like this.

After this we are off to Vegas again. We enjoyed Ellis Island casino so much that we decided to have another couple of days and try to catch up with a guy from my father's neighborhood in South Philly. Unfortunately it didn't work out for us to meet John, but on the way in we did stop at this beautiful reserve.

It is a crazy Oasis in the middle of the desert that protects the Moapa Dace and the Moapa White River Springfish.

These fish may look tiny and insignificant but they are mighty! These fish can thrive in water up to 90ﾟF. I don't know about you, but 90 is about all I can take in my daily shower!

When we get to Las Vegas my favorite thing is to go to the Bellagio. I just love their gardens display and they never disappoint. This one relates to the cherry blossom festival. I know that most Easterners are familiar with it because of DC and their beautiful gifted Japanese cherry trees. This guy is of particular interest to us because we are desperate to see a desert tortoise. Perhaps we'll have luck in Mojave Preserve or Joshua Tree National Park.

This was the main piece at the end of the Hall. If you remember our photographs on our last visit here, it was an enormous peacock. This time it was a geisha with water running out of her hair.

It has been told to me by the Internet that in 1964 this Caesars Palace show was cutting edge! Well Mike and I kind of thought it was still in the 1964 era... until we found out that it was actually revamped 4 years ago. I stood there with my mouth open in vague horror as we watched this bizarre animatronic nightmare at Caesars Palace.

On the morning in Vegas we realized that we needed to have the high pressure power steering hose fixed. Luckily this turned out not to be such a big deal, but we did have a lovely time having English lunch at the Crown and Anchor Pub outside Vegas. This is Magdalena. She was are lovely Polish server. I was excited to inform her that we'd actually been hanging out in a town named after her.

After the car was fixed, we headed out of Vegas because unfortunately John, my Dad's friend from South Philly, was not back from a business trip in California. So we headed out of town and ended up finding a nice quiet place to stay at Wild Bill's Casino on the California border. It's a wonder we weren't scared off from staying there because we came across this insane car fire on our way to the parking lot. I don't know about you, but I have never seen a car this much on fire in public.

Whenever we camp at a casino, Mike has this crazy notion that we have to go inside to be legitimate. It was good that he did on this particular occasion because we spent most of the evening listening to a fun 80's and 90's cover band. Come on, who doesn't remember 867-5309 and Hells Bells?!

Welcome to Mojave desert! For some reason Mike had always wanted to come here, so we did. Generally it's not on people's vacation lists and they have very little infrastructure inside the park. But I have to say it's fascinating to see the differences between the deserts in America.

One of the best things is that the Joshua trees were blooming in Mojave. This also might seem incongruous, but the Mojave desert has a larger per-acre concentration of Joshua Trees than Joshua Tree National Park. When you drive through certain sections it really looks like you're driving through a proper forest. And by that I mean one that has deciduous or coniferous trees packed so closely together that you wonder if you could see the sky from the ground or the ground from the sky. Truly I have never seen anything like it in the desert. We didn't know it then but once we got to Joshua Tree National Park, the Joshua trees would be out of bloom and this would be the only place we saw them this way.

The first hike that we chose to do in Mojave was up to the peak of Teutonia Peak. What was unmistakable as we made the ascent was that we were now leaving the Navajo Sandstone Formations and entering the world of granite. Sandstone has its pluses and minuses in that you wouldn't want to put anchors in it to climb, but it's lovely to scramble over. On the other hand if you are clumsy, like me, granite is not always your best friend. I could imagine being like a cheese grater if I took a tumble on these boulders.

Now of course you are going to think I lied because we're standing in front of a sand dune. You might think to yourself "how can there be a sand dune if there's no sandstone?" Unfortunately geology doesn't work quite that way. Barren rock, alluvium, and dry lake beds are all sources of dust and sand that formed the Kelso dunes. We really enjoyed taking a walk up them and then on the way back met an Italian pair who wanted to hike up the dunes too. I'm so glad that we met them because they were in a beautiful convertible with no water, and I was very pleased to fill their 2 gallon jug so that they could hike. He gave me a card, so if we're very lucky maybe we'll be able to find them online later.

At the end of the day we stayed at a dispersed camping spot in Mojave preserve. The view was spectacular but the trash was not! We truly believe that if you're not going to pay for a camp spot in money, perhaps you should do so in clean-up efforts....

The way to Joshua Tree National Park was longer than I thought it would be. The amazing thing is that a lot of the desert would end up looking similar to the section that was already preserved. There were truly almost no towns between the edge of Mojave and the beginning of 29 Palms, Joshua Tree entrance.

The first thing that I noticed in the park was that, if we weren't there at the perfect time, we were still there at a wonderful time for desert flowers. This might be one of my only chances to see this phenomenon because it certainly does not happen in June, July and August!

The first hike that we chose to do was to a desert oasis on the northern side of the park. Welcome to 49 palms Oasis!

As you walk in, you don't hear or see any water. In fact, on the hills preceding this beautiful find and the hills after, there is nothing in any way like this. The only reason that this particular area exists is because geologic activity cracked the bedrock, allowing water to seep up through the granite and form these pools. Luckily the National Park Service has blocked out this area because the desert bighorn sheep come in at night to drink the water. It's important to remember that we're the visitors and they are the residents.

Here is a closer view of the Royal palms in this Oasis. If you see the blackened trees on the right and the left of the photograph, you might wonder how this happened. It's another reason that this area is closed off at night, because about 10 years ago a rogue campfire got started and burned the entire area. These palms are not tremendously fire-resistant and so it could have been catastrophic for wildlife in the area. Generally Oasis palms don't burn because there's just not a lot of large vegetation around them to create large fires. It's just bad luck or careless human intervention that causes it to happen.

As we hiked out of 49 Palms, I saw this amazing lizard. As you'll hear in the video, I wasn't even sure what he was at first because juveniles look different from adults. This is Sauromalus ater or the Common Chuckwalla. They lose the beautiful striping on the tail and become much darker as they age towards adulthood. Nonetheless I was very pleased to see him, even though by the time we left the park we'd never seen a full adult.

Driving to the park was spectacular. If you ever have a chance to do it, make sure that you come in at the Joshua Tree entrance and exit at the Cottonwood entrance. It's not exactly the quickest or the most time-efficient way, but even if you just drive through on the road and just do the pull-off, you really will see the most spectacular scenery, and I don't say that often about a park.

I mean of course if I got to have a second wish, I would say come, bring your climbing equipment and go almost anywhere! Definitely and absolutely camp in either Ryan or Big Boulder campgrounds. Take a couple of the short hikes especially Hidden Valley, of which I have a few pictures below, and is only 1 mile.

On it you can see Yucca plants in bloom. You might think they look similar to the Joshua trees because they are all in the same family. When you stand beneath this beautiful plant you can hear the buzz of the bees even before you step up the rocks to take your photograph. You truly understand how these plants run the desert.

I mean if you really like a little more adventure on this trail. you can also climb through the tiny porthole that Mike found. Even the simplest trail offers magic in Joshua Tree.

This is our view at Ryan campground. Trust me, I'm not asking other people to come and share this amazing first-come-first-served campground. But if reasonably quiet times and beautiful views are your thing and you're willing to travel all the way to Joshua Tree, I would definitely recommend our spot, number 17. I'm in the middle of the Navajo Code Talkers book and, let me tell you, this spot really helped me focus and enjoy my novel.

I guess it didn't hurt that our van was parked right next to the most perfect Joshua tree. Mike and I made jokes about digging it up and bringing it home. We talked about how we could simply remove the air conditioner and forego the solar panels because it would clearly have to ride on top.

At the beginning of our second day, I really wanted to go and see the San Andreas Fault in Joshua Tree. Amazing thing is that it's not all that easy to see in photographs or in person. You would think that an enormous 1,000 mile transverse fault would be so easy to spot almost anywhere. You can kind of see it if you look at the dark swath across Hidden Valley; that's the approximate location of where it is. You can see the change in the rock from the Valley wall to the Valley floor, and amazingly where you are looking is below sea level.

Then we of course want to climb up, as we always do! Our first hike on our second day of Joshua Tree was up Ryan Mountain. This hike afforded us views over our previous day's campsite, as well as another 350ﾟ.

After that we stuck to the valley floor and hiked through beautiful boulder fields. As you look at the rest of the pictures, we will have hiked 9 miles. I know I said the first hike was my favorite but this one was really spectacular too. As humans, we find it hard not to look at inanimate objects and give them meaning. This one is Skull Rock.

After a few miles over beautiful desert landscape, we got to Face Rock. One of the other things about this photo is that you can really get a good look at the granite substrate we've been walking over, through and around. It chips off into a gravelly sand that forms the riverbeds, substrate for plants, and pretty much everything else soil-related in Joshua Tree.

Just after Face Rock I caught a movement under a Creosote Bush. We froze, and saw a desert cottontail. They have been partners with us through so many of our desert hikes, but this is the first time one paused and let me take a photo.

I stopped dead when I saw this beautiful pink flowered plant. I thought it looked like a sea monster crawling up over the rocks. I knew that when I got to the car and googled it, it would have the most amazing name and story but it is simply Dudleya saxosa, The live-forever plant. I'm not sure why I was so disappointed by the name. It's not like I don't want to live forever, but I feel as though it deserves something much more noble.

There were so many more beautiful rock structures on this hike that were never named. Since they weren't, I think that I get to call this one Tulip Rock. Tulips in their day in the Netherlands caused great riches and great poverty. I think a desert might do the same, so I consider the name appropriately bestowed.

On the way out of Joshua Tree National Park in the South towards Cottonwood, there is a point on the map that says Cholla Cactus Garden. I think that the saying on the sign above really sums up these voracious and tenacious survivors.

Again I'm not sure if you remember the Teddy Bear or Jumping Cholla from Saguaro National Park, but it's the one that jumped up and bit Mike's leg. If you also remember, I didn't help until I took photographs… please don't judge. In the parking lot for this amazing garden there were warnings about not getting off path, and an entire NPS-provided medical box for Cholla removal attached to a fence to help stupid tourists who ignored all the warnings.

This was as close as Mike wanted to come to a reunion with his old friends. I can't say I blame him.

After Joshua Tree we decided to disperse camp in the BLM lands just to the south of the Park. We not only spent the evening, but an entire extra day, because I really needed to work on this blog! This was an ideal situation because while we were sitting here we actually got rained on. This may seem uneventful, except that this area of the desert only gets 4" a year. Everyone knows that the only person who can bring rain to the desert is Mike.

Adios Los Ustados Unidos; Hola Baja. Now we are on our way to Mexico. We plan to drive all 939 miles through the Baja Peninsula, into Baja Sur all the way to Cabo san Lucas! Check in on our progress soon.