Kielczyski

June 9th, 2011

We are currently in Joshua Tree National Park at Jumbo Rocks campground. This is one of the coolest campsites I've ever had. The campground is full of jumbo rocks and various desert plants like Joshua trees, cholla, ocotillo, and prickly pear. My tent is surrounded by giant sloping rock walls. Last night we climbed them and watched the sunset. In about half an hour I'm going to climb up those rocks again to watch another sunset. Yes! This is the life.

But before I get ahead of myself with extolling all the awesome virtues of Joshua Tree, let me tell you about what happened before we got here.

When I last wrote, I was in Scottsdale and just about to head out the door to see Grandma and Grandpa in Sun City West. It takes about an hour to drive there and we got there around one. Grandma was on a mission to fatten us up and served us a fun lunch of cheese, crackers, fresh fruit, chips, carrots, hummus, sausage, toast... and much more. Grandma gave us a tour of all the family member photographs in the house. Later in the afternoon, we took the golf cart to the swimming pool. I just love driving that thing. I don't know why. It felt really nice to cool off in the water. Also, I didn't feel insecure in a swimsuit for once since everyone else there was old enough to be my grandparent. Ha! 

Grandma insisted I take some of their books before I left. I spent quite awhile looking them, picking out what I wanted. My favorites were the old ones. There were all kinds - comics from World War 2, a 1970's Chicago travel guide with really cool graphics I plan on using for inspiration in my own design work, a '60's era book full of gorgeous color illustrations about outer space... and lots more. Oh how I love books! When we moved to California we put most of them in storage which I regret. We would certainly have the room for them if we bought bookshelves. 

It was hard to part from Grandma and Grandpa. I don't see them as often as I would like to due to the distance. I hope to visit them again soon.

One thing I regret about the Phoenix leg of our trip was not having enough time to explore the city proper. Most of our time was spent in the peripheral suburbs, so we didn't get the proper flavor of the city. One of the nights we were able to meet up with our friend Allison at her hotel in downtown Phoenix and from what we saw, it seemed pretty hip. We picked up the local weekly, and from what I read in it Phoenix seems to have lots of cool music venues, galleries, and restaurants. Maybe next time we'll have more time to explore.

We got up pretty early the next morning to pack up and tidy up the Scottsdale townhouse. Wayne, if you are reading this... you are either a popular guy or have neighbors who really watch your property closely. We must have met 6 different people who came over looking for you and introduced themselves to me. Or maybe people are just friendly in Scottsdale? I'm so used to living in the big city where your neighbors either totally ignore you or give you a brief "hello."

We took 10 to Joshua Tree. It was a pretty dull drive and I had to drink some diet soda to keep awake. Yuck. At least we had Uncle Keith's tales to keep us entertained.

We arrived at the southern end of Joshua Tree around 6. It wasn't impressive at all. But, we knew there had to be a reason why it was so popular so we drove on. Every National Park I've been to has some wow factor. 

The first campground we came upon was Cottonwood Springs. I had done my research and knew JT had 9 campgrounds total. Only two of which had drinking water, and Cottonwood was one of them. We were not  impressed with Cottonwood and decided to move on and check out the other campgrounds, even though we were losing valuable daylight. It was a decision that wasn't easy to make since water is so important to have in the desert. 

I had read on Tripadvisor.com that Jumbo Rocks was both super cool and full of drunken dude bros so I knew it was a gamble. When we arrived, the campground was almost empty and we had a great selection of sites to choose from. After we set up camp, we climbed up the rocks to watch a very colorful sunset. It was the first time in my life I'd ever seen a purple sunset. I tried to photograph it but the color didn't turn out.

We were terribly low on food so we drove to the tiny town of Joshua Tree outside the park and found a dive-y taqueria. The food was cheap and excellent. When the cook started singing along with the Banda music we looked at each and remarked on how much we loved traveling.

We slept really well. I woke up at 6 am to eat breakfast and have my tea before the temperatures went into the 90's. Around 10 am the shade disappeared, the insects came out in full force, and it got ridiculously hot. We got in the car and drove into town to kill the time during the hottest hours of the day. Around 3 we hiked a bit around Keys View and Barkers Dam. We've seen a lot of guys on this trip; a sidewinder snake, a less harmful snake, jackrabbits, hummingbirds, lizards, some other crazy reptile, beetles, kangaroo rats, and pocket gophers. JT is abundant with life of all sorts. Don't be fooled by thinking that the desert is a wasteland. 

I'm going to sign off now. Time to relax next to the fire and crack a beer. Tomorrow we leave for San Diego!