1 A Joshua tree at sunset on the third day. I chose this one as the anchor picture for this album.
2 Day 1. This is the oasis at Coachella Valley Nature Preserve just outside of Palm Springs. It's owned by the Nature Conservancy.
3 Lush desert fan palm trees.
4 Joy and Allison on one of the trails inside the oasis. The boardwalk is to keep you out of the water.
5 Walking around the oasis you quickly realize that it's not all green and lush.
6 Look at the size of that palm! We thought about trying to take one back on the plane with us. Next Sunday is Palm Sunday and we could show people what a "real" palm frond looks like!
7 The brown ones are from last year. They die back and frequently don't fall off.
8 The base of a young one is certainly protected by these teeth.
9 Hiking from one oasis to another in the preserve.
10 Animal life along the trail.
11 Going into the second oasis.
12 This one had a large pool of water.
13 The photographer couldn't resist trying to take an "artistic" shot of the pool.
14 Another try
15 Ditto
16 Ditto
17 Joy at the base of one of the palms. This started out with the question "I wonder how far back this goes?"
18 This is the trail through the oasis. You can see that the desert is never far away. Note the sand dunes in the background.
19 Artistic shot?
20 These palms are really tall!
21 Day 2. We've just arrived at Joshua Tree National Park and stopped for lunch at the Hidden Valley picnic ground.
22 We decided to take the short nature trail through Hidden Valley. There were a lot of climbers in this area. The valley was totally flat and surrounded by large boulders until a rancher (Keys) blasted a path through the rocks.
23 This is a pretty typical view of Joshua trees with lots of large rocks around. The photographer was blessed with an abundance of white puffy clouds most of the time we were there.
