There’s always been an intriguing draw for me to get to Joshua Tree NP. From pictures and descriptions, I just knew it’d be an interesting place unlike anything we’d ever seen before. We chose to camp on the southern boundary of the park since they are at peak season and getting a spot in the park was not going to happen.

Chiriaco Summit is a small family-run oasis community. Even though there is only a gas station and small cafe at this exit, you could sense the hospitality exuding from the people working there. We set up at the free Dry Camp right behind the General Patton Memorial Museum, the full timer there welcomed us and got us “registered” since we were planning on staying more than one night. (This was more of a place for people passing through but welcomed weary travelers for up to seven days as well.)

Our first foray into Joshua Tree was a stop at the Cholla Cactus Garden right about sunset on the Sunday after the Thanksgiving holiday week (it was quite busy). There were a lot of “influencer” type photo shoots happening and it felt as though we had truly arrived in California 🤣🌵💃🏽

The garden itself was fascinating. Just miles upon miles of this one species of cactus. It whet our appetite for what was to come with the other desert foliage.

The next venture in, we planned on a whole day. From our southern location you had to cross the Colorado desert into the Mojave and drive about 40miles into the park to start to see the Joshua Trees. That’s been an interesting take out here in the dirt, I thought a desert was a desert, but you could actually see the terrain transform crossing these two distinct planes.

The most popular and highest elevation hike, Ryan Mountain, was suggested to us by a ranger so we started our adventuring there. It was a steep climb up, about a 1000ft elevation gain in 1 1/2 miles. We are out of condition for high elevation hikes like this! But we persisted and made it to the top for the 360° views. After that we made our way to a picnic area and a lot of roadside pullouts featuring rock formations and Joshua trees. We didn’t make it to the northern most part of the park because we thought we’d approach it from another entry point later in the week but that plan fell through. We still saw a lot though and were super happy to check it off our must see parks list.

The third full day spent in the park was on the southern end and a longer hike called Lost Palms Oasis. We hiked to just what the trail was called, some lost palms settled into a wash that someone must have planted for relief from the desert heat who knows how long ago. Camden was in high gear on this hike, a surprising development for the day, he had been expecting some scrambling and rock climbing the whole time so he was in a hurry on this hike. It was the fastest pace we’d ever done 7 miles in, just under 3 hours! From the end of this trail, the boys decided to bushwhack down an old canyon and waterfall that fed basically right back to our camp, that satisfied his want for an challenge. Us girls went from where we came to retrieve the car. We got home early and rested for the remainder of the day, after ice cream of course.

Our next stop was just about 90 minutes down the road and still a part of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, though quite different in feel. Zach found us a free campsite (with toilets even!) called Telephone Cove that was right on the water. We pulled in Sunday mid morning where there were maybe a dozen or so other rigs amply spaced out. This seemed like a beach reward to us having spent the previous week near the water but rarely ever close enough to touch it. The paddleboard was promptly filled and launched and we all generally slowed way down to just take in our surroundings.

This was the first opportunity to socialize (safely of course, we’re all outside and socially distanced) with some other people as we met a family of four from Grand Junction, Colorado who have been traveling and living out of their Skooly (renovated school bus) for the past four (!) years. Their 14yo son took an instant liking to Camden so the boys got to playing and chatting right away.

We sat around a campfire with this family for a couple of the nights and had great conversations about life on the road, similar places we’d been, new suggestions and the like, when the question came up, “So, are you guys full-timers?” We’d never pondered this deeply before but it brought up all kinds of existential feelings. Are we full timers? Well, if we stopped this we don’t have an established home to return to, we don’t have any work pulling us anywhere, we homeschool, so I guess if those are our qualifiers then yes, we are full timers. I’d been having separate but similar thoughts these past few weeks when looking around at some of our fellow campers, especially this week at the free spot. Some of these people are homeless, living out of their vehicles / Some of those people are US! That’s us, we live on the road, granted we chose this, but it puts this lifestyle into perspective and gives a huge dose of humility and compassion for anyone experiencing homelessness, regardless of how they arrived there. Also, we are a scrappy, resourceful bunch. This place felt the most like a community with friendliness and conversation beyond the normal head nod or wave. We rather enjoyed this camaraderie and didn’t really want it to end. When our skooly friends departed two days ahead of us camp felt a lot different, like a piece of something special had moved on.

In addition to the great home vibes here we did manage to venture out for a couple of hikes. The surroundings are definitely transforming more into desert and less mountainous. A hike right by our camp was up an old wash with a lot of scrub oak and cacti, gravel terrain and millions of rocks of all sizes. Our second hike in Grapevine Canyon was filled with petroglyphs, and, surprising to all of us, actual vegetation – grapevines, trees, green shrubs and grasses, all credited to the active water flowing through this canyon.

We knew it was getting close to time to move along when for two days we were caught in another storm system that brought incredibly strong and unrelenting winds. I don’t recall ever feeling so anxious overnight about weather, it was like the wind and endless rattling camper noises were blowing right through my body. I thought we were going to lose everything that was still outside or sustain major damage. What really happened is one of our outdoor rugs flew down the beach but we were able to retrieve it in the morning. We moved up the cove for our last night here to be closer to a natural windbreak. This sweet spot will be remembered for glimpses into community and another unconventional Thanksgiving for the Mashek’s.

Continuing on our southwest Utah tour, our next stop was Bryce Canyon NP. We were immediately taken aback that this park was more like our Rocky Mountains in that the park was full or towering pine trees and forest vs. the desert surroundings and red dirt we have been acclimated to. The other more pressing surprise was the incoming snow storm, we couldn’t outrun this one, we had to brace ourselves and it was just a matter of how long to sit through it. The first day we were ahead of the snow, we found an open spot in the campground and got set up before the precipitation began. By about 2pm it started snowing steadily but we were busy distracting ourselves on a drive around the park and an attempt at seeing some overlooks. When this proved futile, we returned to camp to hunker down in front of our heater. There were people all around us in the campground that were in tents so we thought they were either hardier than us (or maybe crazier?). There was definitely a novelty to this snowstorm. I remember a childhood family trip today the Grand Canyon where we had snow, so if nothing else we were creating special memories. The next day we decided to venture out into a couple smallish hikes to still take in some sights. We bundled up and set out. The thing I’m learning in this season of being flexible and lowering expectations is that once we are out doing the activity, the weather doesn’t really matter all that much. If you layer properly, you won’t get too cold, and the sense of accomplishment after the task is all the greater with the added (insert your: snow, wet, heat, less than desirable weather) challenge. We enjoyed both a short hike to Mossy Rock, and a longer stint from Sunrise to Sunset Points in the canyon. There were few people, a few glimpses of blue sky lighting up the orange hoodoo rock formations, and as promised, plenty of great memories made. A second night of camping in the snow seemed like no big deal after our day’s accomplishments. We knew this second night was projected to be even colder though (and far less tents surrounded us), so we cut our intended visit short one day and planned to move on further south in the morning to dry and warmer ground. We didn’t want to break anything on Flossie if it could be avoided. Already the bathroom sink was freezing up and we were barely keeping warm ourselves. We’ll reassess if there’s anything we want to go back to in Bryce, but with winter coming it really feels like we are just trying to stay ahead of the inclement weather at this point in our travels. Lesson learned, one night of snow is fun for the novelty, two or more – we are just asking for trouble.