Photos From Joshua Tree

All the camp sites at the park seem to be around big rock formations like the one I'm standing in front of. We stayed at the Belle Rock camping area, which had a total of 18 camp site. If you pick the right two spots, you have some privacy and are less likely to have complaining neighbors. We were lucky, the camp sites on either side were very quite, and if fact, so were we. Also, the park rangers drove by several times a day and they never stopped to tell us we were violating some park rule. The big excitement at our site was when a maintenance truck caught on fire. There were able to put the fire out, but then came the park range, then a tow truck, then another maintenance truck to finish the job (clean the bathroom) and later someone came by and put yellow tape around the site of the fire.



Like I said, it had been 15 years since I had been here, and as it turns out, I ended up going on the same hike I did back in 1993. It was my idea to go on this hike. I knew it was not too far or strenuous and the Lost Horse Mine is kind of interesting. Even though I felt like I was dragging some of my friends along, everyone had a good time. The mine looks as I remember it. As far as other changes to the park in the last 15 years, I'd say the most noticeable are improved roads and better bathrooms. Most of the roads looked newly paved and the bathrooms smelled better than my car, not that my car smells bad. Otherwise, the park looks the same. I'll have to dig out the photos I took before and compare them to the ones I took this weekend to see if anything has changed. For one, I know my hair will look less gray.

The rest of the group sitting on a wall above the mine. After the hike, we went back to the camp site, ate lunch and relaxed. For dinner on Saturday night, everybody cooked up all sorts of food. I brought my own food, but there was so much food I didn't need to cook my own meal. We had red beans and rice with sausage, carnitias and all sorts of toppings and sauces. I just put everything in a tortilla and ate it as one big burrito - very tasty and filling. On Sunday, we all work up fairly early, ate a small breakfast, packed up our tents and left by 10 AM. We were in four cars and all left at different times but then re-grouped at Chris's house where the weekend continued. We showered, ate more of our camping food and listened to music.