Joshua Tree
Oct 22, 2013 by Arthur
Joshua Tree National Park, located in Southern California near Palm Springs, is a park named after a tree that has a very “Dr. Seuss” kind of appearance. These trees are mostly found, however, in the Mojave Desert portion of the park. Though you’ll also find them growing next to a saguaro cactus in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona or mixed with pines in the San Bernadino Mountains.
We enjoyed our visit to this spectacular park and glimpsed once again the creative genius of our Creator God. But the park is far more than the oddly twisted branches of the Joshua Tree. It also contains fascinating rock formations, such as “Skull Rock” and various others. Of course you have to get past the continuous reference that all these formations took 100 million years to produce. It’s interesting that if the forces of nature produce a “wearing down” of rock formations, that we still have sharp jagged outlines of the rock formations today. Since we hold to a young earth doctrine, it all makes perfect sense that our Creator God fashioned the earth much as we see it today. And what a glorious, marvelous, awesome work has been done for us - His pinnacle of creation - to enjoy. And enjoy it we have.
Bonnie and I drove through the park and camped within it at a campground where there were only about 4 or 5 other campers.
We were nestled in by the rocks and had a beautiful view of the night sky without ambient light from nearby cities to dim our sight of a portion of God’s universe.
We spent a quiet night and got up early (around 5 am) to grind and prepare some coffee and wait for the sunrise. Glorious!
Leaving the campground we continued through the park to visit Skull Rock. We wanted to take Flat’s picture and Bonnie helped Flat get into position. We often get asked about Flat and are asked if we are taking pictures of him for our grandchildren. We always give a brief explanation that he’s our “travel buddy” and also was an advertising star for Levi jeans in the UK, and that we do take pictures for our grandchildren, but also for the children of our former church who are following our blog. But on this occasion a fellow traveler saw Flat up on the rock and began to get really excited that he was seeing Flat in person, because he had seen him on YouTube. Bonnie and I had a good laugh over that because this was the very first time that Flat had been recognized since he came to “live” with us.
Continuing through the park we came across the cactus garden where hundreds of cholla cactus were growing. It was amazing to walk through the garden amongst these cacti. And if you ever get out West be sure to visit the Joshua Tree National Park. You’ll have a great time!