Its San Andreas's fault - check out the scary dark line running
through the middle of the picture

Its a J Tree Finale!
So then, we rejoin our heroes back in Joshua Tree for their escapade-filled long weekend...

After lunch and another quick snooze, we headed back out into the park for a scenic drive.  We'd picked up some tips on cool places to check out from the Visitor's Center and that we could see quite a lot within a couple of hours drive.

First stop was to head eastwards and south, into the centre of the park, and to visit Keys View.  Perched on the crest of the Little San Bernadino Mountains, Keys View offers panoramic views of Coachella Valley and the mountains beyond.   The main attraction was a freak-yourself-out view of the San Andreas fault - one of the many fault lines in this part of the world and the one that could pop at any moment...  It stretches 700 miles from the Gulf of California to the Mendocino coast north of San Francisco and - as a recent graduate of the Shake House at the California Academy of Sciences - its not going to be much fun when it happens.  I just hope my house stays standing.  But, enough of that, back to the present, non-seismic moment!  All you could really see of the fault was a dark line of rocks, so it was a little anti-climactic!

Aggressive bees?  No problem.  Just call for the bee-whisperer....

But the rest of the view was spectacular and breathtaking in its scale and grandeur - it reminded me a bit of being at the Grand Canyon, where everything was just so immense, your poor little brain simply couldn't process it properly and just, instead, went "Umm....OK.  That's cool.  Wow.  Big...".  So we goofed about for a little while, avoided the big group of Korean tourists who'd just rocked on up, and headed back to the car to continue our explorations.

Amazing view of the Sonoran desert and Santa Rosa mountains

The Three Amigos....

WHOOOOOOAAAHHH!!!
 The wind is strong at the look out....

And what's the problem again with my parking??

Whoooo.....spooky!

After Keys View, our next destination was the Cholla cactus garden - a surreal cactus patch that is one of the highlights of the park.  En route to the garden, we passed an intriguing sign for Skull Rock, so obviously had to stop and investigate further - it was actually really cool and looked like a skull (hence the name, I guess!), so we took some pics and tried to get some with the self-timer on the camera, but they ended up focused about 10 feet above my head, so never mind!!

So, onwards and eastwards to the cactus garden - one moment, you're driving through the Pinto Basin, the next you're surrounded by a weird collection of lanky, gangly, multicolored, fuzzy-looking cacti.  As soon as you spot them from the road, you want to pull over for a closer look, but that must be a very common reaction as there were lots of signs saying "DON'T STOP YET!!  CAR PARK IN ONE MILE" (roughly) so we dutifully obeyed instructions and kept going for a few minutes longer, until we could park up and hop out to explore.  By this stage, the light was just beginning to fade as it had taken us longer than expected to reach the garden.  Also, due to a lack of plumbing planning, both my travel companions were in increasing need of a restroom so, of course, there was nary a bog in sight, despite there having been loads of loos around earlier on!

So our visit was short and sweet but not without incident, despite only being there less than 20mins!  There is a little short guided trail through the cactus garden that you are not supposed to stray from - the nickname of the fuzzy cactus, the Jumping Cholla, giving you a clue as to your fate should you disobey...  This plant is an absolutely vicious bugger as the spines on the plant are so prickly and sensitive, they seem to jump out at you.  The tiny barbed hooks on the spines can easily penetrate flesh and, when the hapless victim (or in this case, Lori), tries to pull away, the cactus joint often comes with it, digging deeper as you struggle to try and remove it.  All this we read after our little visit which is why we only realized after the event just how completely stoopid our little photo shoot was below!!  (especially mine!).  Lori accidentally got a bit embedded in her foot after her off-road incursion and it was very painful to remove - I shudder to think now what would have happened had i lost my footing and stumbled forward into the great big cholla bush I was pretending to hug.  Yeah..they may look cute, fluffy and eminently huggable but I think I had a very close escape from a complete facial spikefest - eek.

Just one or two vicious barbed spikes....

Umm..... proof that being smart doesn't guarantee
you have common sense!

Before....  

A very welcome sight...

After our cactus-wrangling, it was time to hightail it outta there and look for a restroom, stat!!  Fortunately, we found one about 15mins drive away, at this lovely campsite, so i parked up quickly and both Karen and Lori made a run for it!   By this stage, the sun was really starting to set, so we were treated to an absolutely spectacular sunset, as we drove out of the park and back towards our bungalow.  Incredible reds and yellows, oranges and golds.  Simply stunning.  Enjoy the pictures below....

Groovy baby...

Day 3: Farewell, Joshua, hello Marilyn!
Sunday morning, and it was time for a Disney-redo, with the same adorable assortment of fluffy critters as before.  We had a nice and easy, relaxed morning as we didn't need to check out of the bungalow until midday, so we just vegged out and did our best to consume the remaining food in the fridge (including a smoothie that was probably close to 50% peanut butter!).   Sitting out the back, reading trashy magazines and watching the sun come up, the hummingbirds flitting to and from the nectar dispenser, it was another perfect start to the day and a fitting end to our short but sweet sojourn in Joshua Tree.  I would definitely like to come back here, perhaps in the spring, when all the desert wildflowers are in bloom - its supposed to be absolutely gorgeous.  And I would definitely stay at the bungalow again - it was such a great base to explore the park from.  Anyway, finally it was time to load the car up and say farewell, and head back to Palm Springs for our early evening flight to SF.  Here are some of my favorite wildlife pics from the morning:

No..... thank YOU!!

Bizarro largest sculpture in the world
 of Marilyn Monroe

We got back to Palm Springs just before lunchtime, so went and got some (non-Thai!) food for lunch, then wandered round for a little bit, exploring the very tacky clothing stores.  One store was misleadingly named British Invasion and it was very weird inside - other than the apparel (which was entirely synthetic, completely devoid in any taste and generally bedazzled to within an inch of its life), the guy in the store completely ignored us but was instead 100% focused on his Direct TV and selecting You Tube videos of Russian beauty pageants to watch.  Very bizarre and a little disconcerting.  So we beat a hasty retreat and went and had some very delicious frozen yogurt from this little store in the gay part of Palm Springs.  Duly restored, it was time to face the heat for the last time, walk back to the car, look up Marilyn's skirt and head to the airport.

Our flight was a bit delayed (way to go, United) but we finally got underway (along with a veritable contingent of cat ladies (and their moggies) as well as a very drunken ladies tennis team) and landed back in SF around 10pm.   Lori very kindly gave me a lift home, so i was all tucked up in bed by midnight and reflecting on what had been a thoroughly enjoyable weekend.  I feel very lucky to be able to visit such amazing places and to have such great friends to share the experience with - here's to our next adventure!!