The American West has so many National Parks that Bob and I decided to buy the National Park Senior Pass that gives you access to all them from coast to coast. Joshua Tree, located a short 2 hours drive away from San Diego, is one we have missed but that had come to us highly recommended, so, given we had a cat sitter, we decided to see what all the fuss was about.

It really is a just a bunch of Joshua Trees in the middle of some rock formations. Wait, I must correct myself there is also a lot of desert sand. A very monochromatic landscape. Endlessly. Or at least endlessly within the confines of the Joshua Tree National Park.

The Park was remarkably similar from entrance to exit. It was difficult to determine what we were supposed to be looking at. In most National Parks, you see a swarm of people looking in a direction, you turn to where they are looking and pretty quickly figure out what the attraction is. In Joshua Tree I would try to determine what people were looking at and I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out what it was. It finally dawned on me that it was these fairly pedestrian rock formations and Joshua’s Trees. Oh, and I can’t forget the desert sand. Endlessly.

Let me tell you I am not an anti-rock formation kind of guy here either. I have been to Arches National Park in Utah and those rock formations were something to gaze at. The ones in Joshua Tree, on the other hand, are something you could easily see driving in eastern San Diego County.

I did have one important takeaway. I was reminded that I wouldn’t have lasted 10 minutes on the wagon train west.