Enjoying Joshua Tree NP Despite the Shutdown

Our visit to Joshua Tree National Park coincided with both the park’s traditional busy season around the winter holidays and the ongoing government shutdown. While this made for more stress in our planning, including finding a new place to camp outside the park when all the campgrounds were closed, we were still able to enjoy … Read more

Celebrating Christmas at Death Valley

Our drive in from the Mojave area really set the stage for the world of extremes that we would experience in Death Valley National Park, the largest national park outside of Alaska. One of the few towns we passed through was Trona, which basically brought my vision of an industrial hellscape to life. The town … Read more

Quick Stopover at Red Rock Canyon

Following our stated intentions of slow and easy travel, we decided to break up our trip from Ventura to Death Valley into two segments, stopped for two nights at Red Rock Canyon State Park near Mojave, California. This park features colorful badlands-style rock formations as well as Joshua trees throughout the campground, so it really … Read more