March 24, 2017
Joshua Tree National Park
Joshua Tree, CA

Today we decided to make the hour drive over to Joshua Tree National Park. We drove northwest on I-10 to CA 62 east to Joshua Tree. The drive takes you through the Palm Springs/Desert Hot Springs valley. This area is very windy and therefore contains hundreds of wind turbines.

Even though this is a desert area with temps reaching the high 80s this time of year, you get a beautiful view of snow capped mountains.

I believe this is Mt San Jacinto which has a height of 10,833 feet.

Traveling east on CA 62 heading towards 29 Palms (big Marine Base) you come to the main visitor center for Joshua Tree National Park.

I can't say that this was the nicest visitor center we ever visited. It was small with insufficient parking and extremely crowded. We drove a short distance past the visitor center and quickly came to a mile long line of cars waiting to enter the park. We took a few photos of the area and headed back out.

Note to self "never visit a California park on the weekend"

Probably not the most memorable National Park we have visited, but at least we got our fridge magnet ;>)