It was very difficult to find the visitor centre on our trip to this National Park as the “streets have no name”. The park ranger could see I was looking perplexed and asked if he could help. I said that, even with this map, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”. The park ranger said “what, U2?” Eventually we were put on the right track but by then Jane had lost interest, so I said I’m going “with or without you”

Ok that’s enough of the bad puns!

The landscape of this park reminded me of the cartoon series “The Flintsones”. I half expected to see Fred or Barney popping out from behind a rock!

We had visited a few other parks in the last week and this one again had a totally different landscape to the others. This is where the Mojave and Colorado desert come together and make some surreal geological features with the help of strong winds and the occasional torrents of rain.

And talking of occasional torrents of rain it was quite alarming (literally) to get this warning sounding on my phone. America has a system where all mobile phones within an area where there might be a potential weather problem have a warning sent out to them. It was very unusual to hear the sound of a loud klaxon emanating from everybody’s phones!

Nobody seemed to be paying this warning any attention so I asked a coach driver who had stopped to let his passengers explore if we should be worried. He pointed to a distant cloud and said “that’s where the problem is, just use your common sense and you will be ok” So that’s what we did and we never saw a drop of rain. We did, however, see evidence of the rain as we drove through a large puddle later in the day!

We didn’t dare wander too far from the car but we did take a little stroll around these rocks to see the hidden valley where in days gone by rustlers used to hide their ill gotten gains!

Joshua trees are incredibly unusual-looking, in part because they aren’t trees at all but a plant belonging to the Yucca family!

Apparently you can see the San Andreas fault from here, or so it says on the sign …….. you will just have to take my word for it!

These are some of the larger examples of the Joshua Tree. They are probably close to 150 years old……who knew I would become an expert?…….Thank you Wikipedia!

Despite the barren surroundings I found an unconventional beauty to the place!

For some reason they call this place Skull Rock, I’ll have to google it!

If you don’t stop now you’ll find lots and lots and lots and lots more desert!