Joshua Tree National Park is so interesting and has a great many trails. There is more information about it at the Your RV Lifestyle website and they even have a book about Joshua Tree National Park. We’ll have to go back.

We hiked up Ryan Mountain…

And we saw Ryan Ranch...

This might have been from Keys View…the darker line in the middle is the San Andreas Fault…wow.

Back to Ryan mountain…

This was the mountain from the last post…but from the top of another mountain. We met another interesting couple on top of this mountain…and the four of us had the summit to ourselves for almost 20 minutes…then people started to pour up.

We started back down to do more exploring.

The Ryan Ranch – Linda to give reference.

A pump motor I think.

They used to pump water from this place to the Lost Horse Mine.

One of these Osprys flew overhead.

The people we met suggested the Hidden Valley Hike.

I don’t know why I love these trees.

Then there was the Arch hike…this is huge. I was wearing hiking sandals but the climb up was too much to try.

Down to the Cholla (just in case you’re like us and mispronounced it…it’s pronounced choya) Garden…so many of these Teddy Bear Cholla. On the Gilbert Ray post I was silly enough to get one stuck on my hand…ouch!

This was a very thick patch.

For some reason bees like it so much that the National Park Service felt they had to put up a sign.

We then visited Cottonwood Spring…but didn’t hike to the Lost Palm Oasis…this was good enough as the sun was going down. Literature says these trees can consume more than 200 gallons of water a day.

The next morning we woke up to the lunar eclipse…best shot I could get.

We had done the total solar eclipse in August so this was a treat too.

We wanted to get farther south and on the way out the Ocotillos were starting to bloom. Amazing! My parents had a small one and I always thought it was just a bunch of twigs and every now and then it would get leaves. This plant can bloom up to five times a year as well as growing and shedding leaves as many times. We were lucky enough to see this.

We left for Borrego Springs…