This was going to be a Two Fives on Friday post but I clearly couldn’t manage that. I didn’t even come close. But I can at least get up a little recap in before this week swallows me whole.
{It actually became a real post about our trip! Complete with pictures! It’s a miracle! I wrote it Sunday night but decided to schedule it to post Monday morning. Just some clarity on some of the “tonight” talk.}
We’re back from our little camping trip to Joshua Tree. It was a good trip. I didn’t feel like I could sit down and rest for even one second, but I’m glad we went. Joshua Tree is an amazing spot and I had never been there. I’m glad I’ve experienced it, and that I was able to do so with my family.
The weather was beautiful. Spring is definitely the time to go. Wednesday was actually quite warm (85*), but that day was a weird blip for 10 days before and after. It seems like 65-75 is the norm for the days in April and 45-50 is a consistent low at night. It’s incredibly dry there. Even with a 40 degree difference between the low at night and the high in the day there was NO condensation on anything when we woke up. Our skin and lips were very dry by the time we left. It did get chilly at night but it stayed relatively warm until we went to bed and then was warm again pretty quickly in the mornings. I packed up some warm pants for before and after sleep that no one really needed.
We have a good set up for food for two nights of camping. We bring already cooked spaghetti that we warm up in a pot on our camping stove for the first night and hot dogs to cook over the fire for the second night. We bring PB&J sandwich fixings for the lunch and bagels and cream cheese for extra food when we need it. We also bring walnuts and cranberries as a snack.
This was our first camping trip where we had to bring in our own water. I was stressed about it, and bought a four pack of 2.6L water bags. We ended up filling three of them (I couldn’t find the top for one) and then later filled up two more and we had an entire extra bag of water. One 2.6L bag of water for each of us for drinking, cleaning and dishes for 48 hours of camping in a very dry, warm place.
We also had two gallon milk jugs of water frozen in our YETI. These were clutch. They kept the YETI cool for 72 hours (we left early on Monday and spent the first night in Palm Springs, but we didn’t take anything out of the YETI that night). It was also AMAZING to poor the cold water out into our water bottles on Wednesday when we were hot. I found this “camping hack” on a KOA site and we will absolutely be using it again. Such a great way to keep your cooler cold but still be able to use the water as it melts. And the YETI was dry when we got home! Hooray!
We finished the fifth and final Lockwood & Co book (The Empty Grave) on this trip. We absolutely LOVED this series and the final book was not a disappointment. We started this one in December on our camping trip to Pinnacles and I didn’t push continuing it because I wanted to save the second half for this trip. I’m so glad we did. We spent a lot of time in the car and this book definitely helped us pass that time.
Which I appreciated because both our driving days were over 12 hours. The Chevy Bolt ranks low among electric vehicles for long haul car trips and we definitely know why. We can only safely go 150 miles at 75-80mph before needing to charge again. And getting back to 80-90% takes about 45 minutes when we’re low. We’ve had our car for six years and we knew it wasn’t the greatest for long road trips. We don’t take many so it didn’t bother us much, but I decided after this trip that if we take it down to San Diego I would need to stay for at least a week or take another car. I just can’t do two 12 hour driving days with only two days of “visit” in between.
Having said that, the car handled the cargo carrier and bag great. I don’t think it shaved much mileage off the car’s capacity. We didn’t hear it at all, and it only bottomed out a couple times. I am VERY pleased with those purchases and will be putting that baby on the back whenever we need extra space.
The kids were fine on the trip but there were big feelings about not being able to shower for two nights and quite a bit of bickering. They weren’t always sure how to be helpful and pretty much everything fell to my husband and I. It definitely felt like a really intense trip and we were both pretty exhausted by the end of it. It was not at all restful or relaxing. Still I’m glad we went. And I appreciated that we got home three days before returning to school.
I have spent much of those three days working or prepping for my test next weekend, but I’ve also gotten all the laundry done and all of the camping stuff back in the shed. Today the kids helped me clean the car (inside and out) and I’ve tackled some pain points that I knew would cause me stress this week. I still have more work to do tonight, but I did enough so that I feel relatively calm coming into this week. I have my 7th/8th grade classes on two different tracks this week, which I did before and liked. My husband will be out of town again (he comes back late tonight and leaves early Tuesday morning), and I’ll be at the dojo a lot so my kids are going to be stepping up quite a bit. I’m so grateful that they are older now and able to be home alone for significant stretches.
And now for some pictures of Joshua Tree, because it really is hard to describe how awesome it is with words. It’s a magical place and I definitely want to go again.
We drove to the park from Palm Springs on Tuesday morning stopped along the way at various spots to walk and hike because our camp group was 30+ minutes away and we didn’t want to drive back to the spots that were closest to the entrance (and farthest from our camping spot).
Hidden Valley
This spot was maybe my favorite. It’s a small valley with rock hills all around. It felt like an enclosed movie set, at no point could you see any of the rest of the park. It was only about a two mile hike but I loved it. Evidently in the past cowboys would hide stolen cattle in this valley while they rebranded them to sell them again.
Sunset walk to Skull Rock
We camped at Jumbo Rocks and it was a great spot. I would highly recommend it. Lots of cute camping parcels and so many fun things to explore. The only big “exhibit” nearby was Skull rock, and people had to park on the road to see it, so no one was just randomly walking through our camping area.
After sunset we took a walk to Skull Rock to check it out. We really enjoyed watching the sky turn different colors as the sun sank behind the horizon. It was a great way to end our first day.
Hike up Mt. Ryan
We left early Wednesday morning to hike up Mt. Ryan because it was quite a climb and the high was supposed to be 85*. We were on the trail by 9am, which felt like a real win. (The sun shining right through our tent door at 7am definitely helped us get out early).
The hike up Mt. Ryan was 1.7 miles one way, with a 1200 ft elevation gain. The views from the top were stunning; you could see so far in every direction. There were mountain tops with snow beyond the Joshua Tree Valley. It was absolutely worth the walk.
After our big morning hike, we had lunch at the camp site. Then we drove into 29 Palms to get firewood and fill up two of the water bags, just in case. We went to the Visitor Center and got a couple of mementos, including a patch for my Gi and a magnet. We charged a car up a little too, because why not? It was nice to kill the hottest hours of the day inside.
Heart Rock and the Arch
In the afternoon we did a short hike to see two rock formations, the Heart and the Arch. The entire hike was around 1.5 miles, all flat. The area was really cool though, and we climbed around the rocks quite a bit there. (Somehow I didn’t get a photo of the Arch, and my husband has all the photos of us up under it on his phone, which is with him in the air right now. Boo.)
I really could not get enough of the vegetation in this desert. It was all so beautiful.
Night Skies
But maybe my favorite thing about camping in Joshua Tree was the night sky. Each night we saw the moon above the rocks by our camp site. And by the time we went to bed you could look up and see a million stars. But in the early morning, around 4am (when I had to leave the tent to pee) you could see the Milky Way. It was absolutely amazing.
Joshua Tree is definitely worth a visit. Camping there was easy and fun and I would definitely recommend it. It’s a must see spot, in my opinion.
You need to do a trip out to my neck of the woods! There are so many great parks like this one (though definitely do not drive, EV vehicles are pretty terrible out here – very few charging stations and with all the mountain driving I do not recommend). But you could do a great loop through the San Juan Skyway around through Mesa Verde, Moab and back. Put it on the list! Joshua Tree is definitely on my list to check out some day. Great pics! https://skywayvisitorguide.com/about/
Oh, and the frozen water hack is SO useful, we always do that when we are rafting on a multi day trip. We also use gallon freezer bags that we fill with water and lay flat to freeze, and they create a nice cold layer between things in the cooler if you need to extend the cold time (or the cooler will be in more direct sunlight, which is what happens on river trips). And we pack the cooler in the order of when the food will be used, so you can have frozen entrees on the bottom level and by day 3 or whatever they’re thawed enough to easily heat up and eat! You guys definitely do a great job making camping as easy as possible, good job!
When we stayed in Joshua Tree luckily we were in a small airbnb which stood alone in the desert. We had a mountain lion, coyotes and what looked like wild dogs roaming around. Glad we weren’t camping at that time. We drove from Las Vegas to Los Angeles via Joshua Tree.
I’m from the UK and not used to wild animals roaming, other than foxes and badgers and an occasional deer!
Hope you didn’t have any encounters with large wildlife.
Looks like a great trip – brilliant photos!