As we were leaving Arizona to travel to California, we decided that we wanted to stop and explore Joshua Tree National Park. We have heard wonderfully intriguing things about this park, and we thought it made perfect sense to use this time traveling through California to experience it for ourselves. 

Our first choice was to find BLM land in the area for an inexpensive and unique camping experience. We looked online to find a place, but we were too nervous to rely on dispersed camping because we were new to it and weren’t sure what to expect. 

BLM land operates on a first come, first served basis and it can be more challenging for larger RVs to find a spot that can accommodate the size of the rig. We weren’t sure how likely it would be for us to find a campsite in the BLM area that we could fit into. We thought that we could find a campground nearby in the event that we didn’t get lucky with the BLM sites, but after doing some research we found that many campgrounds were closed due to Covid. We were nervous about getting to California, not finding a site and not having a promising backup plan so we decided that it was just easier to book a campground in advance to knew for sure where we would be staying. 

That is how we ended up at Oasis Palms RV Resort. 

The first hike we went on was Black Rock Canyon to Panorama Loop in the northern section of Joshua Tree. It was about an hour and 20 minute drive from the campground. During the drive to the trail, we had to go through Palm Springs, which turned out to be quite terrifying for us. We had an unfortunate event occur that we are so unbelievably thankful that no one was hurt by.

During the drive, we had to go through an incredibly windy section. There are over 4000 windmills in the area which supply enough electricity to power Palm Springs and Coachella Valley. Now as we are not from this area, we do not know if this was normal wind speeds occurring that day that we were just unprepared for or if it was a particularly windy day even for the area, but as we were driving on the highway, the wind caused our truck cover to rip off the bed of the truck, resulting in the metal bars that secure the cover to blow into the road. Thankfully, we were in the right lane and the wind blew them to the right, causing them to land on the side of the road instead of hitting another nearby vehicle. 

When this happened, we obviously had to pull over quickly as the truck cover was now blowing uncontrollably. Ryan got out in attempt to secure it down, but he was having a hard time fighting the wind. Once it was safe for me to get out from the driver’s side, I went out to help him and I have to say, it was incredibly difficult to fight the wind. The wind was so strong, I felt like I had to use all my energy to avoid it knocking me over, let alone trying to tie down the truck cover.

Once we secured, the flapping tarp, Ryan set out for an impromptu adventure of hiking the side of the highway in search for the metal bars while I stayed with the truck. He was able to find all of the pieces we needed and we stored them inside the truck so we could continue through the windy area safely, but we were both extremely scared to travel through this section in fear that something worse would happen. We took the time to make sure everything was tied down to prevent another incident from occurring, but despite all our efforts, we still had fears that a terrible, unforeseeable incident would occur.

We were so lucky that nothing worse happened as a result of this event, but even now, months later, we still have fears that the truck cover will blow off unexpectedly.

As for our hike on the Black Canyon Rock Trail to the Panorama Loop, we had a wonderful time. It was our first time hiking in sand and it was a very difficult task. Negotiating the sand was a new challenge that took time for us to adjust to and our hip flexors were quite sore early into the hike. We managed to complete the 7 mile adventure, taking our time to stop and enjoy the unique scenery that we had not encountered anywhere else. 

Joshua Tree National Park is quite fascinating. It is a desert landscape filled with multiple types of cacti and is known for and named after the Joshua trees that live there. Joshua trees have a distinct appearance, resembling a hand. According to TreeHugger(1), in the 1800s Mormon settlers named the trees after a bible story in which Joshua reaches his hand up to the sky in prayer.

The weather in the area was quite interesting. We started the hike feeling warm from the sun and as the day progressed it became hotter. We started off the hike with removing our sweatshirts and feeling comfortable in short-sleeved shirts, but as the day continued it became very windy and we needed to wear our down jackets for comfort. 

We stopped at the top of a hill around the halfway point of the trail to have lunch. The wind made it chilly and unpleasant to stay there so we quickly made our meal of freeze-dried chicken pesto pasta, and then we continued on our way once we were finished eating.

The rest of the hike was a bit uncomfortable for me in particular. While we sat down to eat lunch, I felt a pinch on my butt and suddenly jumped-up shocking Ryan. I quickly pulled my pants down enough to see what just happened (thank goodness no one was nearby!) and found that a fire ant had crawled into my pants and bit me.

So, for the rest of the hike I had a burning and itching sensation to deal with. It was very uncomfortable. I was just glad that it was only one ant that bit me and not a group of ants!

Despite feeling uncomfortable, we didn’t try to rush the rest of the hike. We still made sure to enjoy the beautiful and unique nature surrounding us. 

Reference:

1. Vartan, Starre. “Why You Should Go to Joshua Tree National Park.” Treehugger, 2 September 2020, treehugger.com/whats-fun-do-joshua-tree-national-park-4868782