Joshua Tree & San Diego by Kenny & Kristen
Posted on 2017-04-07
I took a trip out to San Diago to visit Kristin and one of our big goals was to make it to Joshua Tree National Park! We took the weekend to come out and do some exploring in the Mohave Desert! Neither of us had been hiking or camping in a desert before so we were pretty pumped forthe trip! The cool part is that the desert was full of these HUGE, JUMBO rocks! Perfect for climbing on - which we proceeded to do =]
Kristen was all over the place! Dipping and ducking between these things like a little weasel! (She might not like that analogy but shes not writing this =] - also it may have been me doing that)
While we were out, we came across a trail to hike up Ryan Mountain. This was pretty odd to see because out in the middle of a huge flat area, was this mountain which was just about higher than most mountains on the east coast. Mount Rogers was about 5728 feet and Ryan mountain is 5457 feet! This was the lone Joshua tree (Yucca Tree) near the summit!
After coming back down the mountain, we were unfortunately unable to find a campsite at one of the few campgrounds in the park. But that was ok! Luckily there is a ton of land from the BLM (Burreau of Land Management) on the south side of the park (located outside the park) that we were able to pull on to and we found a spot with no problem! Kristen cooked up a nice dinner in her super awesome jetboil while i built up a fire. The hardships here were that the ground was sandy, so our stakes didnt really stick. And the wind wwas pretty ferocious. I woke up a few times in the night to "re-stake" the tent and at one point i was lucky enough to catch the wind cover before it blew away! Lessons learned.
The sleep was better than on the hard ground of a mountain, but not as good as my hammock would have been. But that did cause me to wake up a bit early by chance to catch the sunrise. It was a beautiful start to the morning. We just threw the tent and our things in the car figuring we would roll them up when we made it back to the hotel that day. Easy cleanup.
That morning we wanted to get in another hike so we made our way to the Lost palms Oasis hike on the south side of the park. This was a pretty awesome hike as we got to see these crazy trees out in the middle of nowhere. They looked like beard trees! Also, Kristen was trying to be stealthy and sneak up on me in this one.
And that was ok because i caught her in her natural state with her eyes closed. Never fails =]
The lost palms oasis was something like i hadnt seen before. Down around the corner of this photo lies a jungle of fan palm trees and it literally feels like a jungle. The wind didnt blow, the air was cooler and it felt a bit tropical for being in the middle of a desert!
One of my big goals while in San Diago was to get some fish tacos and a california burrito. They did not dissappoint! This is from the Taco Stand - who had some straight up fantastic tacos and burritos! If you can handle it - the loaded fries are pretty baller as well! Also, dont forget the corn on the cob.
This place is an awesome weekend getaway area - or in some cases a week getaway. Its easy to find things to do and its an uncanny place to enjoy nature. People seem to know how to enjoy the sunsets here. Even though there are so many people - when the sun goes down, its like everyone takes a moment to appreciate whats happening.
