Jeff and I discussed what we would do for the fourth day of our trip the night before, when we were both feeling our age after a full day of traveling through Death Valley. My itinerary had us going to Kelso Dunes and a lava tube in Mojave Desert National Preserve — or rather, it had Jeff doing those things because of the hikes necessary for both. Upon investigating a little more, Jeff decided he’d seen enough dunes, and didn’t want to squeeze through a lava tube on his own, so we decided to use that time to sleep late instead. We left the hotel at around 9:30 for the roughly 2 hour drive to Twentynine Palms, our chosen gateway into Joshua Tree National Park. The most I can say about the drive was there was a whole lot of nothing with pockets of civilization popping up here and there. We started to get excited when we drove through the city of Joshua Tree because we could see the famous plants growing thick among the houses, but when we actually reached Twentynine Palms, they were few and far between. We later came to realize how ecologically limited these plants are, with only a very small range of elevation supporting their growth. Little wonder, then, that they are a protected species. We stopped at the Visitor Center in Twentynine Palms and looked around the gift shop for any Christmas ornaments, which we try to collect wherever we go. While searching, we overheard the ranger at the desk tell a customer that the parking lots at the popular sites were totally full, and that the best he could hope for was a driving tour that day, seeing what he could from the scenic pullouts. That pretty well informed us what further changes we needed to make to our list of things to do for the day. I advised Jeff that we should drive to the less popular southern end of the park in the Cottonwood Springs area to get that section out of the way, and then perhaps stop on the way back to town at some attractions once the day-trippers from LA had cleared out. So we drove about another hour to just outside the Cottonwood Springs campsite, where we found some pavilions and picnic tables where we could eat lunch. But the wind was so cutting that we abandoned that idea and, again, ate sandwiches in the car. Just a few hundred feet down the road we were able to find parking for the oasis at Cottonwood Spring. The trail there allows people to just go see the oasis, or to continue on to old gold mines and geologic structures. I only wanted to see the oasis, and figured Jeff could go further on, but he didn’t really want to. We looked around the oasis, where we were forbidden to get off the trail because of cobalt and other hazardous materials in the soil and water. There were a few steps to negotiate, and with my bad heel and knee, I needed to lean on Jeff some to get up and down. This caused another couple to have to wait on us even though I tried to get over as far right as I could so they could pass, and I felt so embarrassed. Sometimes I tell Jeff that he deserves someone who can actually do things with him, but he’s a good husband and just scoffs at the idea.

By this time, it was getting later in the afternoon, and after the half hour drive back to other attractions, some of the crowd had cleared out. We were able to see the Cholla Cactus Garden, and this area came to be probably Jeff’s favorite. We masked up and walked far enough away from the other people there that we could get some pictures without human interaction. We were both really enjoying trying to catch the perfect light and subjects, but unfortunately, Jeff didn’t pay enough attention to where he was stepping. Suddenly, I heard him let out a big yelp, and was afraid a snake had bitten him or something. I looked over, and a baby cactus was sticking out of his shoe. For a second, neither of us knew what to do as he stood there grimacing in pain. He started to try to pluck the cactus out of his shoe, but I thought better of it and advised him to take his shoe off first and use a rock to remove the cactus. He spent a few minutes pulling spines from the sole and sides of his shoe, and a tiny spot of blood soaked through his sock. The rest of the time, we were hypervigilant about where we stepped. I asked Jeff if we could go to Keys View for sunset, and we started driving northwest to try to make it in time. As we climbed in elevation, we finally got to the section of the park that was full of Joshua Trees. Jeff had brought a shirt from his Lipscomb days that had the cover of the U2 Joshua Tree album on it for the express purpose of getting a picture with a similar tree. The clouds made for some pretty dramatic pictures of the Joshua Trees, but they also made us realize that we would not see anything at Keys View. We turned around and went back to the cactus garden, where even more people had left and we got a lovely sunset with the plants. With cloud cover obscuring any chance of stargazing, we headed into Twentynine Palms to check into our hotel. The Sunnyvale Garden Suites used to be an apartment complex, so when we got there, we had a full kitchen and living room in addition to the bath and bed. After finding out what kinds of pots and pans we had available, we went to the store in town to pick up food to cook for breakfasts and suppers. I fixed us enough spaghetti to have leftovers the next day, and we enjoyed some game shows from the 80s on the TV before bed. I had totally forgotten that Alex Trebek hosted Classic Concentration!