calherewecome

On Friday, Paula and I decided that we needed a day off of the grid. So we decided to take a day trip out to Joshua Tree, CA. Joshua Tree is about 150 miles east of Los Angeles in the middle of the Mojave desert. We left San Pedro around 0930. Light to medium traffic out the 91 freeway. Most people were heading in the other direction. We stopped for lunch at a Carrow’s in Yucca. I checked my iPhone for any updates on the Boston Marathon bombers. Not much new news. It was a beautiful day. Clear skies and about 75 degrees.

Twenty minutes later we arrived at the Joshua Tree information center. We talked to a very nice park ranger who gave us a map. We paid $10 for a lifetime National Park service pass. This was the first time that I have ever been carded for my status of being over 65. Then off we went to the park. So here are the pictures taken by my trusty iPhone 4S.

This my friends is a Joshua tree. We had hoped that the trees would be in bloom, but we think that we were a little bit early or perhaps not enough rain over the winter.

Lots of boulders.

This is a Yucca plant. Much of the flora in the desert has evolved to that it can survive in the desert with little or no water.

Some of the plants were blooming.

Cactus flowers.

It is amazing how a plant can survive in the cracks between the boulders.

Big boulders.

Yucca with a bloom.

This is view from Keyes View. The view is towards the San Rosa mountains and the San Andreas fault.

This picture was taken using the iPhone’s panorama mode.

So it was getting on to be 4:30pm and we wanted to be back to San Pedro by 7:30pm. So we hit the road back west towards LA. Next time we might try to stay a little longer.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Joshua Tree, CA

This entry was posted on April 19, 2013 at 11:15 pm and is filed under California, Travel. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: California, Desert, Joshua Tree, Mohave