Joshua Tree and Beyond

The final installment of my travelogue brings us to New Year's Day and a trip to Joshua Tree National Park.  What a way to start off 2014.

Along the way, we stopped at a Pet Cemetery in Desert Palm Springs and met one Randy Frills, who I will call the owner/proprietor--though when asked if he created the cemetery he informed us, "Well, I brought them stones up myself."  So, um, yeah.  Mr. Frills (who could never be called "Mr. Grills" for his lack of proper teeth) told us that the cemetery wasn't all cats and dogs.  There's a horse buried in the back, as well as a pot-bellied pig "from the movies."  The movies!  So I guess it's really a celebrity pet cemetery.  Frills went on to describe his current legal woes (the water to the cemetery has been cut off), but we hit the road before he could ask for a handout.  A handshake was all he got.

Here are some shots:

We hit up the Del Taco in 29 Palms for some "sustenance" before hitting the park.  I can't even get into it fully, but there were some real freaky-deaky regulars hanging out at the picnic tables at the 'Taco.  Not to mention, we were worried our city-slicker systems would reject the greasy "meat" in a violent way.

But this was the worst that happened.  Some DT bits landed on my Rachel Comeys.  Gross, but things could have been much worse.

We finally made it to Joshua Tree, where we drove through and wow'ed at all of the rocks and cacti.  We even got out of the car a couple times to take photos!  I definitely would like to hike in the park someday, but I felt pretty good that we even made it there (after surviving the Del Taco) on New Year's Day.  Last New Year's Day, we were couched and well into an Upstairs/Downstairs marathon.  This year we experienced nature!  Even if it was mostly in a car!

We drove through Pioneertown on our way back to Desert Palms and promised ourselves that next year we'd do a night at Pappy and Harriet's Pioneertown Palace.  A hipster hootenanny was the only thing missing from our vacation.