We are back in Ohio! Our camper is in California!!! We had so much more that we wanted to see and do but we also wanted to be home for Christmas so we decided to do both! We stored the camper and truck at our campground near Joshua Tree. Tate, Miles, and I flew home while Ken, Grant, Charlie and Higgins bravely made the 32 hour (plus stops!) trip home in the minivan. Everyone made it home safe and sound! The house feels so big and the hot water showers last so long! We are looking forward to some time at home and spending time with family and friends.
Our last stop before returning home was Joshua Tree National Park. We spent two weeks at our campground in Twentynine Palms, CA which was 10 minutes from the entrance to Joshua Tree. We loved Joshua Tree! Grant and Miles declared this their favorite national park! Much like many of the other national parks, I did not know too much about this national park. I thought it was land filled with Joshua Trees! There are a lot of trees, but there is so much more!
The Mojave and Colorado Deserts meet in the middle so there are two very distinct ecosystems. The Mojave Desert is located at a higher elevation and home to the Joshua Trees. Each Joshua tree is as unique as fingerprints. It also includes some of the most interesting rock formations. There are random hills of bare rock and loose boulders scattered throughout the landscape. The flat lands between the hills are forested with Joshua Trees. The Little San Bernardino Mountains also run along the southwest edge of the park. The eastern part of the park encompasses the lower, flatter Colorado Desert full of sandy grasslands and desert dunes. It is also home to the cholla cactus. There are also 5 naturally occurring oases throughout the park which was so fascinating.
We kept referring to Joshua Tree as the biggest outdoor playground! We did a lot of hiking. We sauntered through a maze of desert vegetation, worked up a good sweat ascending mountain summits, raced the sunset on a beautiful strenuous hike to an oasis, scrambled on rocks, and got lost in mazes of rocks and cacti. The boys just loved climbing all the different boulder formations and exploring the desert’s nooks and crannies. There are adventures of all sorts within Joshua Tree National Park.Â
Joshua Tree became a national monument in 1936 and was given national park status in 1994. Before it was a national park, it was home to cattle ranchers and gold miners. We had the opportunity to take a ranger-led tour of Keys Ranch, an example of one of the prime settlements in the area. Keys pursued both ranching and mining to make a living in the desert.Â
We also celebrated Thanksgiving while we were in Twentynine Palms. We enjoyed a slow morning watching the parade, a beautiful afternoon hike and a Costco chicken pot pie for our Thanksgiving feast! It was a quiet but very special Thanksgiving.Â
Joshua Tree National Park was a wonderful way to end our fall journey out west! We have experienced so many incredible places over the past three months. We have grown as a family. We have learned a lot of lessons, some fun and some difficult. We experienced God’s unbelievable variety of creation in so many marvelous ways. We are so thankful for the opportunity we had to travel and explore and we cannot wait to continue our travels in the spring!
Thank you for following along with our journey! We have really enjoyed sharing our adventures with each of you. We talked about all of you often on our travels. We pray that each one of you has a wonderful Christmas and New Years with family and friends. We will be back in 2024 with more adventures! 🙂
