Joshua Tree National Park

I visited Joshua Tree National Park this past weekend, which was a sublime experience! The park is a desert paradise that encompasses two different desert ecosystems: the northern part of the park is Mojave desert and the southern part is Colorado desert, which is a subregion of Sonoran desert that is supposedly the hottest and driest desert in North America.

Joshua Tree is filled with wondrous things, including its namesake, those magnificent and freakishly Seussian Joshua trees, enormous granite rock formations, and palm spring oases. The oases are amazing - in the middle of a seemingly endless desert there suddenly appears a small patch of lush palm trees. The palm trees live off a small amount of water that collects in a certain spot, often underground. The cluster of palm trees provides shade for animals and for other plants to grow below them, creating the appearance of a tiny tropical island in the middle of the arid desert.

And then there were the wildflowers! Since it is spring, many of the desert plants were blooming. The landscape wasn't blanketed in color, like I've seen in pictures of other places; in fact, from a quick glance the desert appeared to be as dry and barren as ever. But upon closer inspection, you began to notice pockets of vibrant color everywhere. Tiny purple flowers carpeting the ground, wild dandelions showing off their bright yellow color, delicate orange flowers growing between rocks, and brilliant red and pink flowers blossoming on cacti. Not to mention the light green buds and beautiful white flowers atop the Joshua trees, and the absolutely enormous cream-colored flowers blooming on the yuccas that are ubiquitous throughout the park.

But I have yet to mention the true highlight of my visit. The most exciting thing of all was that I succeeded in finding, and photographing, three different wild chuckwallas!!! (My investment in a camera with a good optical zoom really paid off!) Joshua Tree National Park is chuckwalla heaven, replete with numerous basking rocks, comforting crevices, and tasty creosote bushes -- everything that chucks dream about. :)

A ridiculously large collection of photos can be found here.