Indio, California

We drove through and explored the Joshua Tree National Park yesterday. It’s an amazingly diverse park that encompasses two distinct desert ecosystems: Colorado and Mojave.

The Mojave Desert is the western half of the park and is at elevations above 3000 feet. Joshua trees, which aren’t really trees but a type of yucca plant, grow in this desert at about an inch a year.

The trees bloom from February through April. We saw blooms at the highest elevations, but I didn’t get a picture of one in bloom because there was no place to stop where they were blooming. Here’s what the blooms look like.

The Colorado Desert is the eastern half of the park and lies below 3000 feet. It’s a part of the Sonoran Desert which covers southern Arizona and northwestern Mexico.

My favorite plant here is the Ocotillo (awk-oh-tea-yo).

When it’s in bloom, most of it here was just starting to bloom this week, it’s spectacular. The tips turn a brilliant orange.

We drove to the top of the Keys View lookout point to take in stunning views of the Coachella Valley and the Salton Sea.

Another highlight was the Jumbo Rocks area with it’s  Flinstone-like rocks. There are other rocks like these that reside in the Hidden Valley which was a legendary cattle-rustlers hideout.

There are a lot of campers and rock climbers in the area. And by one group of climbers we saw this amazing car that warranted a picture. The customization includes a spider web door and bicycle chain welded to the fender wells.