Joshua Tree National Park in southern California has an amazing landscape. It looks like an alien planet, with Joshua Trees reaching for the sky against a background of desert and huge mounds of enormous boulders. It's really beautiful!
Some things to know when you visit this park are that the visitor centers are tiny and two of them (the ones on the west and worth sides) are actually outside the park. So make sure you stop there before you turn and drive to the park entrance, so you can get your passport stamp, extra water, junior ranger booklets, and any souvenirs. You can also buy your park pass there so you can bypass the line at the ranger shack at the entrance. Note that they close at 5pm, and the southern visitor center actually closes at 4pm. Also note that Junior rangers should check out the few exhibits in the visitor center (or a ranger talk) and have a ranger or counter person sign their booklet on p.5 before you leave the visitor center.
Make sure you have lots of water (they recommend a gallon per person) and bring a picnic lunch and snacks. Don't forget the sunblock and hats. It can get really hot. We visited on a cool day, but the desert is so dry we still needed to drink a lot of water. Also make sure you let family or friends know where you are going. THERE IS NO FOOD, WATER, OR CELL PHONE SERVICE IN THE PARK! It's a wild place! And watch out for rattlesnakes; we saw one! They like to hide out under bushes where they are hard to see. This rattlesnake was traveling through the Hidden Valley and paid no attention to the gaggle of tourists who wanted to take his photo.
The western part of the park is the most scenic and has the all the boulders and Joshua trees, so I recommend heading to that area and doing some hiking. We entered at the western end of the park and visited the Hidden Valley trail and the Barker Dam trail which are 1-mile loops. We then drove through the rest of the park (which takes 2 hours!) and exited at the southern exit. The rest of the park is scenic desert landscape but without the boulders, and the joshua trees are few and smaller.
We passed the visitors station after they were closed, so we finished our junior ranger booklets at home and mailed them in. We found this website: http://mojavedesert.net/plants/ very helpful in completing pp. 20-21.
When we got our package back from Joshua Tree park, the kids were very excited to see that in addition to their signed workbooks and badges the park rangers included some paper junior ranger hats and even a children's book about Joshua trees! Wow! Thanks, Park Rangers!
Centennial Badge! Neat!
Junior Ranger says: "Seeing a rattlesnake was the best part. But it was scary!"
Mom says: "It was so beautiful here! Be sure to bring extra water. My kids drank a lot! And watch for rattlesnakes. I kept an eye on my kids and made sure they stayed on the trail and didn't go wandering off into the bushes since snakes like to hide under there. I also told the kids to not go reaching around or under rocks where snakes might be hiding."
