Joshua Tree. aka J-Tree

Joshua Tree. 

You’ve most likely probably heard of this strange Dr. Suess like reality from U2’s album of the same name. 

I will guess that is where I originally heard of them as well. 

Thank you Bono. 

And all the congregation stood and said at once, “Thank you Bono”

Anyways enough of that. Joshua Tree National Park. JTree as we gonna call its.  Let’s talk about that, because it is something special.

Joshua Tree National Park resides in Southeast California and is the conjunction between two different US Deserts: The lower, and drier Colorado Desert, and the higher and slightly more humid Mojave Desert. 

Amy and I had never really been to California. (if we are talking technicalities, then yes, technically I had on a Mission Trip with my church youth group in high school to Mexico. We stayed in San Diego, and crossed the border every morning to help out a local church and community. I puked out 10 lbs, learned 0 spanish, and don’t remember being in California, so no need to to cover that story.)

But I digress, we basically hadn’t been to California. 

But we had been staying in Arizona for most of November of 2020, because van life has now made us migratory birds-flying south in search of warmth.  And that’s how we ended up in Arizona and not in Colorado.
While Arizona had not been as warm as originally dreamed of. It was still in the 60-70’s most days, so we will definitely take that- it is the desert after all and that means it still gets cold in the night. I’m talking high 20’s low 30’s. So we are still running our little propane powered Catalytic Safety Heater every night before bed. We call her Cat. short for Catlyn Stark.

All that to say, we were only a state over from Californiaaaaaa( queue RHCP voice)

And when we found out our friend who lives in Oregon, Kati Hoy was going to be in San Diego, we figured Joshua Tree would be a magical place to unite for a few days since it was roughly equal distance from where we were both staying. A little background- we met Kati a few years ago when she was living out of her self-renovated Sprinter Van and introduced us initially to the concept of Van Life. That trip was in Moab, Utah. We then continued meeting up and sharing life in amazing places every year such as the Great Tetons the year in between these trips.

We each drove the 3 hours to Joshua Tree National Park from opposing directions and met in Twenty-Nine Palms, the city, excuse me, town right outside of JTree NP. 

Anddd that is where I am going to leave you in terms of the story of our stay in this blog.

Why ?? You ask.

Because over the three incredible nights we were in JTree NP with Kati, we had her on the podcast to talk about all things under the sun from van and travel life, to who we are all striving to be as people. It’s really good. Listen HERE.

And if you want to here even more the trip, Amy and I recapped it in the VanLyf Story episode after that where you can listen HERE.

So now what’s this blog about you say??

Well to show you some damn pictures of Joshua Tree National Park!

Something we cannot do on the podcasts. 

So here ya go! 

Go see the full album from all the shots I took below.

Or keep reading a little more of my rambling on what Joshua Tree is like.

TBH, when we chose Joshua Tree National Park as a destination location, it was more for the company and convenience of the location rather than the draw of the park itself.

As mentioned in the first paragraph of this blog, everyone has heard of JTree, and probably most everyone has seen pictures of one or more of the actual “Joshua Tree’s.” I had. and I went in with slightly low expectations - which was a bad decision, because as I continue to learn on the reg- National Parks are National Parks for a reason. 

And this one was no different. 

But lo and behold, I was all like, “what can be sooo special about a little weird tree.”

Ohhh, a lot apparently. 

I honestly had a hard time taking photos that actually felt like they captured the magical deserts we were spending time in. The Joshua Tree’s were something out of this world, and fit more into the world of the Lorax. They towered anywhere from a few feet to a few stories tall. And actually fit more under the category of Yucca, then an actual tree. 

In the Mojave Desert Section of JTree was where the forests of Joshua Trees were growing. Around dust colored boulders, in cracks of crevices, on tops of mounds, and covering desert plains-the trees were everywhere! And seeing the immensity and weirdness of them never grew old. It was almost impossible to pick out which one was them most intriguing, and even though we drove around the same path through the park a few different days- it was even hard to recognize the same tree you had just seen the day before. They were that unique.

Not to mention, the whole park itself felt like a “movie set” as Amy kept referring to it that weekend. And it was very true. From the boulders, to the flora and fauna, everything felt otherworldly and staged in sense. All the world is a stage after all.

The colors of the sunset and the evening were especially something out of a dream full of hues and saturations the likes my eyes had never seen of. 

ok now its become a full on blog, and I said I wouldn’t do this. ✌️