California - Joshua Tree State Park

Revisiting Joshua Tree was another of the events on the list I sent to Eve and, as she loves the area too, we set off on Sunday morning. The entrance is about 60miles from their house, up the Hwy.

Just off the highway and heading up into the mountains, this beauty was sitting on a rock near the road.

We stopped at the Cottonwood Visitors Centre and paid our entrance fee. The park includes parts of the Mojave and the Colorado Deserts, with distinct geology, flora and fauna.

Photos taken with my little "point and shoot" camera can't do it justice. The colours are subtle, the spaces expansive and the silence relaxing. It is cooler than down in the valley but was a very comfortable mid 70s.

We pulled over frequently; to let faster cars go by, to read information boards or just because a plant or formation intrigued one of us.

We really had no agenda, the only deadline we had was a 7:45 dinner reservation.

Rick and Eve had come up here last winter when rain caused a desert bloom and dried flowers were all that remained now. She has pictures of meadows of colourful flowers.

Piles of boulders invited climbing to the top.

Large, flat, scrub and boulder strewn valleys ended in ridges of chocolate coloured mountains. (that's also their name The Chocolate Mountains)

We had challenged ourselves to paint en plein aire and set up in the shade created by the car.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We discovered that watercolour is challenging in the dry, desert air and the process takes some planning but overall were happy with our first experiments and felt that it had been a good learning experience.

Next we drove through an area which had a lot of these dead looking shrubs called Ocotillos

Some of them though showed signs of life.

The Ocotillo looks dead until there is rain, then it rapidly produces leaves and flowers. Lack of moisture causes them to go back to their dormant state. This can happen up to 5 times a year.

Gradually we were seeing more Cholla Cactus until we came to a car park and area with a trail through a Cholla Garden.

Each Cholla is dark, almost black at the bottom, where the "foliage" is dying off. Middle of the stalk is a caramel colour and the new growth is silvery cream. The sun creates a halo around the spikes of the freshest growth at the top.

They are ridiculously photogenic especially against the barren hills that surround them.

I know I took a crazy number of photos of them when I was last here in 2012, and again I was snapping away.

Seriously, how many pictures of Cholla Cactus do you need.

I will continue our Joshua Tree trip in another post as we were about to cross over a mountain range and into the next desert.