Going to Joshua Tree National Park

I decided to go against my gut yesterday and I was glad.  When I went to bed Saturday night, I had planned to go to one of two places on Sunday to do some photography.  I was planning on going to either Cajon Pass/Mormon Rocks or Joshua Tree National Park.

I woke up Sunday, peaked out the bedroom window and did not see even a speck of blue sky.  I went into my office and checked the weather for my two potential destinations.  Weather Underground had rain predicted at both locations.  I was not happy.

So, I took care of the dog, had some morning breakfast and coffee and began to pout.  I really did not want to spend the day home alone with the dog.  On Saturday, I got home early from my picture taking and was just bored the rest of the day and me and the puppy watched most of the DVDs I had gotten from Blockbuster.  I did not want to repeat this today.

I broke down and decided around 10:30 to just go to Joshua Tree.  Yes, it is much further from home, but the prediction for rain was less certain at Joshua Tree and I hoped by the time I got there the rain would have stopped.  Maybe, there would even be some good post-storm cloud formations.

I have been to the Cottonwood Area of Joshua Tree once before; I think that was our first ever visit to the park.  Most often, however,  I will enter the park at the Joshua Tree entrance and exit the park at the 29 Palms entrance, with a detour to Keys View.   This is just my personal preference.   I would not want to deter first time visitors from heading down to Cottonwood and catching the Cholla Garden around sunset.  See our editor’s description of the Cholla Garden here.

Betting against the rain, I took I-10 east towards Chiriaco Summit and the Cottonwood entrance to the park.  Traffic was reasonable, there were scattered clouds, and I made it from Santa Ana to the Cottonwood ranger station in about exactly 2 hours.  Along the way, Mount San Jacinto’s peak was completely clouded over; it must have been a nasty day up in Idylwild.

I spent about 2 hours in the park.  As I hoped, the clouds were glorious…