Jake and I decided this morning that we needed to go for a hike. We've all been sick and cooped up too long and the weather has turned warm so it begs us to be out in the sunshine! So we woke Tom up early, got our chores done, and headed out.
We went to Joshua Tree National Park (lucky us with a National Park in out back yard). We thought about doing the "Boy Scout Trail" but it was too long for today. We've decided that we need to plan that one for the future. Maybe have Dad drop us off at one end in the morning and have him pick us up at the other end in the evening. It's 8 miles!
So we chose the "Barker Dam" loop instead. It's only a mile but very pretty and loops around so we don't have to worry about reserve energy for getting back.
There was not a drop of water in the reservoir though. I really thought there would be since we had a couple days of rain last week. Cool though, because we could walk all the way down to the dam. There was another place we could have walked back to because of the lack of water, but the boys weren't up for that kind of an adventure. We need to get our walking legs back into shape anyway.
I told Tom that if he was a "real man" he would walk upright across the top of the dam but he promptly replied that if he was a real man he would be off the dam and safe because he was smart. That amused the other hikers quite a bit.
He did start to scare me here though. The fall is about 10 feet onto more rocks and work boots are not very conducive to good footholds.
We did a bit of rock scrambling and found some nice plants. It was about 60 degrees so gorgeous warm in the sun and chilly in the shade. Like I said, it rained last week, so the ground is wet in places still and there were pools in the rocks. There were lots of people on the trail with us. We saw four Alaska license plates! Everyone we talked to seemed happy to be there and it was a pleasant walk.
We found this cool water trough beneath the dam.
Can you believe this date? The trough was from when Keys' lived here. It has his name on the other side.
And some Petroglyphs to wrap up the day! Tom translated it for us. It says "Fish fell in love with Dog thing and had headless cactus babies". I think it says "For a good time call..." Something about being upside down on a teeter-totter too!
So we headed back for some Carl's Jr. on the way home. It was just what we needed!
We went to Joshua Tree National Park (lucky us with a National Park in out back yard). We thought about doing the "Boy Scout Trail" but it was too long for today. We've decided that we need to plan that one for the future. Maybe have Dad drop us off at one end in the morning and have him pick us up at the other end in the evening. It's 8 miles!
So we chose the "Barker Dam" loop instead. It's only a mile but very pretty and loops around so we don't have to worry about reserve energy for getting back.
There was not a drop of water in the reservoir though. I really thought there would be since we had a couple days of rain last week. Cool though, because we could walk all the way down to the dam. There was another place we could have walked back to because of the lack of water, but the boys weren't up for that kind of an adventure. We need to get our walking legs back into shape anyway.
I told Tom that if he was a "real man" he would walk upright across the top of the dam but he promptly replied that if he was a real man he would be off the dam and safe because he was smart. That amused the other hikers quite a bit.
He did start to scare me here though. The fall is about 10 feet onto more rocks and work boots are not very conducive to good footholds.We did a bit of rock scrambling and found some nice plants. It was about 60 degrees so gorgeous warm in the sun and chilly in the shade. Like I said, it rained last week, so the ground is wet in places still and there were pools in the rocks. There were lots of people on the trail with us. We saw four Alaska license plates! Everyone we talked to seemed happy to be there and it was a pleasant walk.
We found this cool water trough beneath the dam.
Can you believe this date? The trough was from when Keys' lived here. It has his name on the other side.
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| Gorgeous view. That's Gorgonio in the distance. |
And some Petroglyphs to wrap up the day! Tom translated it for us. It says "Fish fell in love with Dog thing and had headless cactus babies". I think it says "For a good time call..." Something about being upside down on a teeter-totter too!So we headed back for some Carl's Jr. on the way home. It was just what we needed!
