Joshua Tree, April 17-18

We intended to go camping the first weekend in April. But we had to move it due to unforseen circumstances. Vinny was so distraught and so instead of canceling the reservations, we just changed them. As we couldn't get away on that Sunday we were only able to stay one night. It was a wonderful time though. Vinny so had been begging to go camping. He loves it! We are so glad because we are a camping family. We don't go nearly as much as we desire, but we go at least once or twice a year. This year we are aiming for three times! Woo Hoo!
This is such a change for me as I went camping at least once a month with my family growing up. But, we have different schedules and Dan's vacation doesn't work quite like the Navy (which still requires me to do some adjusting in my expectations). So, with all this in mind we took off Friday afternoon and headed for the closest National Park, Joshua Tree. It wasn't as far as we thought, it actually is just around the corner from the Redlands temple (ok, maybe an hour, but still close). Our campground was great, set in the Joshua Trees and the park was much more mountainous than we expected. I guess when I think desert, I am forever stuck with the idea of flat sandy areas, but rarely is that the case, in fact Joshua Tree is more like the desert I grew up with. It covers the Mojave and Colorado deserts, and you can travel between the two. We picked a good weekend because all the cacti were in bloom. And of course my favorite, the ocotillo. We woke up in the morning and let the boys goof around with their trucks in the campground. They had a great time just filling them with dirt and dumping it out. Gianni, forever the rock hound, collected all the rocks he could find and dumped them out. Mommy, who had felt better just got to watch and take photos with her big lens, it was fun to just relax and the boys just loved goofing off at the campground. They just can't wait to go back again. Then we took off to do some hiking, we had the best of intentions, but this was shortchanged by Noelle not feeling so great. We altered our plans and took the 3o mile drive from the top of Joshua Tree down through the Colorado desert. At the bottom, we discovered that we were right about the Salton Sea. This was surprising to me because my family had driven all over that area, but never made it to Joshua Tree. We would regularly drive to the Salton Sea, I suppose with the fond hope of swimming, even though that is not possible anymore. Somehow though we never made it the five to ten miles north that would have brought us to Joshua Tree. It was a lovely weekend and we look forward to going back and exploring when we are all feeling better. Vinny keeps asking for the Joshua Trees and when we can return. I am grateful and look forward to more adventures with them.