Check One Off the Bucket List: Prickles, Bunnies and Incredible Landscapes in Joshua Tree National Park

I have been wanting to go to Joshua Tree National Park for years.  When the album was still but a twinkle in Bono's eye.  I looked into going a number of times when I lived in NYC, but it was too expensive and time-consuming for the flights etc, so I never made it.  And I was supposed to go earlier this year back in March, but had to cancel at the last-minute because of work so it was with not a small amount of pleasure that I found myself, a couple of Fridays ago, on a plane to Palm Springs with Lori and Karen for a long-awaited weekend in Joshua Tree!   Now, being on this side of the country, getting to J.Tree (as we locals call it) was a breeze - a 1hr 20min flight to Palm Springs, then a very easy 45min  drive from the airport to the West Entrance of the park where our bungalow rental was located.

The flight was fine, although the plane was entertainingly tiny.   Anyone over 6ft tall was sh*t outta luck with any hope of any leg room whatsover.  I had to finish a teeny bit of work on the plane, so got that cranked through and finished up just as we were coming in for our descent.  Palm Springs is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, in the desert, so the whole vibe is very reminiscent of Vegas - except with a pretension of slightly more class.  Unfortunately for them, we were now in town and up to mischief - although we'd seemed not to have received the memo which specified that all women should be clothed exclusively in either white trousers or incredibly teeny tiny short shorts.  As we flowed through the airport in our sundresses and louche San Francisco clothing, we were glad we were gettin' outta Dodge.

Collected the car no probs from Hertz and we were underway.  After some entertaining misdirection from the in-car navigation system, Karen got her GPS up and running on her phone, so off we went (in the right direction).  It was actually a pretty easy drive, a couple of main highways and - before we knew it - we were approaching Joshua Tree!  As we'd all been up really early, we decided to stop for an early lunch as it was about 11.30am, so well into the acceptable Lunch Time Zone.  I consulted the info that our host had sent us about good places to eat and we chose the Crossroads cafe, which turned out to be an excellent selection - the food was good, tasty and cheap!  Then it was onwards to the Bungalow - and it did not disappoint!  

Afternoon Arrivals at The Bungalow 

I'd found the rental on the website VRBO.com and it had had nothing but absolutely stellar, 5 star reviews.  I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who wants to go visit - you'll see it in the pics below, which capture some of the eclectic charm of the place but it was absolutely brilliant.   Here's the listing:  http://www.vrbo.com/83127.  Other than being in an unrivaled location for ease of access to the park, I loved the fact we had the whole place to ourselves with plenty of space to sit out, chill and enjoy the incredible landscape and abundant wildlife.  The quirky neon signs and old-fashioned 50's era furnishings, knick-knacks and kitchen appliances were just fab and it was very, very well done - it didn't feel contrived in the least, simply that it was - for the owner - a labor of love that he enjoyed sharing with people.  Here are some of the pics we took in the late afternoon, that first day, which gives you a sense of the place:

View of the main bungalow and the Bottle House

Brightly colored bottles in the walls of the Bottle house 

One of many cool neon signs and classic cars in the grounds

View from the road, framed by the iconic Joshua trees

A mere taster (as it were) of the wildlife frenzy that was to come

One of the many little havens of relaxation

Not sure but that might just say "Camp Vindaloo"....

Stephen King novel, anyone?

We had arrived around 1.30pm, right in the heat of the day and - god knows why but we were all suddenly completely sapped of energy and in need of an emergency afternoon nap, stat!  I know, I know - old farts or what?!  We all listened to our inner Dad and had a snooze for an hour before rousing our lazy arses around 3pm to head into town, do some grocery shopping and scope out what our options were for the following day.  After loading our shopping trolleys with plenty of snacks and lunch stuff, we decided none of us could be arsed to cook that night, so - after enjoying a completely spectacular sunset from our back patio, we hopped back into the car and drove the 10mins into town in search of sustenance.  Our first choice, the Joshua Tree Bar and Saloon, was having a karaoke night and - though we had recovered some of our energy from our impromptu snoozefests, none of us felt strong enough for that, so we scuttled out of there fast and ended up in a Thai restaurant instead.   The food was great (although the service was a little on the relaxed side) and reasonably priced so, stuffed to the gills with pad thai and green curry, we waddled back to the car and headed home for the night.  I'd brought the Wildlife Bingo with me for our evening's amusement but none of us could spare any energy from the more pressing task of digestion, so we just sat outside for a bit, read crappy gossip magazines (OK, OK - that was me) before turning in fairly early around 10pm.  We had decided to get up before the sun tomorrow, as we'd been advised that both the sunrise and the early morning wildlife were well worth the loss of a couple of hours of sleep - and it certainly was.

Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow.....

A simply glorious, glorious sunset over Joshua Tree