...Every New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginning's End...

Sal drove us out of Palm Springs and into Joshua Tree National Park's west entrance via I-10 west and the CA-62 east.  On the drive through Morongo Valley, the sky was clear for some stargazing from the car's side windows and moon roof!  I definitely saw Orion and Pleiades but we were moving way too fast to see any meteors...boo!

The park is open all year and apparently at all hours of day since we entered the park after 4 in the morning.  The dawn was slowly creeping in on the night so Sal just pulled the car off the road with a clear pebbly patch of ground on the side not to far away from a Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia).  I stomped around the ground to scare off any creepy crawlies that may be nearby where we planned to lay out our blankets.   But it wasn't the creepy crawlies that would pester me and Sal, but a flying one...a bat!  I dove to the ground onto my blanket while Sal covered his head with another blanket.  The bat came after us maybe 3 or 4 times before realizing that the tops of our heads were inedible! 

After the bat attack,  Danny and Sal had an early morning Cape Cod (aka vodka and cranberry juice) while Jenn and I had a very tame water!  We toasted to the crazy long day and night we just endured and the fabulous company we were with.  We all laid out on the blankets and just stared at the sky above us.  Unfortunately the dawn creeped up on us too soon making stargazing and meteor shower viewing a futile endeavor.  Instead, I saw the dawn take over the night, an astronomical event Sal says is called the penumbra.  

Being out there in the desert that early in the morning was a sensory explosion!  The cool high desert breeze, though unexpectedly very chilly, was a soothing relief to the stifling humid air of Palm Springs.  This corner of the Earth was so still that you could hear the breeze as it whipped around the surrounding rocky formations to rustle desert foliage.  The air smelled different...as if it were super oxygenated...or perhaps I was on a natural high?!? 

We eagerly watched the eastern skies for the light.  The sunrise cast an ethereal pink haze that slowly rose beyond the ridge several miles away.  Wow...the colors over the desert were brilliant..."Good Morning Sunshine!!!".

Now that we could see more of the desert that lies more than ten feet in front of us, we hit the road for a scenic morning drive past acres and acres of the Mojave Desert littered with hundreds of Joshua trees.   Every now and then Sal would stop the car and we would jump out and take pics of interesting rock formations and desert landscapes.  After awhile, the landscape morphed into one continuous conveyor belt of the same old view.  The only rock form that I remember seeing was the Oyster Bar...these large slabs of rock stacked up against each other resembling an oyster bed. 

Sometime during the scenic drive, I got a pounding headache...the bass-blasting music wasn't helpful either...so I took some Tylenol and fell asleep.  When I awoke Sal and Danny were trying to find their bearings so that we can head out of the park.  Several U-turns later we were headed in the right direction...no thanks to the GPS.  As we exited the park, the park ranger asked for our entrance fee receipt. ..since we entered the park before the toll gate opened, we had to pay the $15 fee.  On the bright side, the toll allows you unlimited entrance to Joshua Tree National Park for 7 days.  We kept the receipt just in case we decided to return on Monday.  With the sun brightly shining, we had a better photo opportunity with the park sign...I was lucky enough to balance my camera on an uneven rock even with the wind blowing so that we could get a group shot of the four of us. 

Our early morning adventure left us all starving so we headed over to another Danny-recommended eateries just outside the park called Country Kitchen (review to follow).  After breakfast, we drove back to Palm Springs to drop off Danny and Sal and we hastily drove back to our hotel in Indio so that we could catch some much needed ZZZZs.