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Just 2 hours away from the City of Lights, lies the land of hundreds and hundreds of wild-armed truffula trees, also known as the Joshua Tree:

This past week Drew and I had the chance to get out of town and spend sometime with these crazy looking things, and quickly learned that no two Joshua Trees are alike:

Once we were done with our initial admiring of the trees, we had a quick snack, hung out with a colorful lizard friend and decided to do some exploring by bike, starting from our camping spot in Hidden Valley, and riding to the incredible Geology Tour Road (map):

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Geology Tour Road is made up of equal parts extremely soft sandpits and hard, brain rattling, sand ripples, created by the numerous cars that drive on it each day. It was hard to maintain control at some points, and I actually ended up completely wiping out in one of the sand pits, but hey - at least it was sand right!

Geology Tour Road is about 20-miles long round trip and is downhill the entire first leg. And because, like most, we find going downhill to be fun, easy and addictive, we had to make sure to cap ourselves off at 6 miles, reminding ourselves that every easy mile down would be an extremely steep mile back up. At least we had an incredible sunset to help distract our thighs from the uphill stretch:

After 22 miles of riding, we made it back to camp and were ready to enjoy our warm and cozy camp fire:

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One of the most incredible things about Joshua Tree that you just can't capture is the glittering night sky- it's absolutely stunning. We felt like we were in a kaleidoscope and with each passing breath, more stars would appear and glow brighter in the darkening night sky... so poetic! But really, it's that amazing.

That next morning we awoke to crisp fresh air and an amazingly clear blue sky. We jet boiled our water for tea and oats and went on to explore and boulder on the many rocks of Joshua Tree... starting with the one right above our campfire:

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We then headed over to Skull Rock, which is a must see for all those visiting the park. It's right along the road and can't be missed being that it looks like well, a skull!

We actually found the rocks and boulders surrounding Skull Rock to be extremely fun for climbing. There was even a rope tied up around "Holey Rock," a very clever name we made up ourselves, so we could shimmy our way up into the peep hole:

After feeling a bit rocked out, we decided that if we wanted to have enough sunlight for part 2 of this adventure, it was time to head on out. Be sure to check back next week as we take you to Slab City, the Sultan Sea and Salvation Mountain - some of the most random, desolate and colorful places we have yet to explore - Rock on!

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