an early morning to get wang and i to long beach to meet andy to then drive two hours east to joshua tree, but i think well worth it. we started with a hike over rocky hills to 49 palms oasis - and there probably were 49 palms. it was much cooler in the oasis and there was actually water surrounded by huge palms.
joshua trees are weird looking and a lot of folks say they are truffula tree-esque from the lorax by dr seuss. maybe - but they are spikier - more like yuccas on trees, but cool looking nonetheless. we hiked sevenish miles to a 'hole' aka mud puddle with ice encrusted over it. it was so awesome though, bc we ended up in the canyon with nowhere else to go and we were unsure if there was water somewhere else that we missed so we started climbing up the rocks to see if we could get a better view. the rocks were gritty sandstone so easy to get a grip on. the boys climbed one stack and i another and we all ended up really high. it was neat to see them across the canyon and so high on rocks. it was fun.
as the sun was setting we raced from high desert to low desert to see the jumping cholla (choya) or teddy bear cacti. they are fuzzy looking but extremely spiky and apparently double barbed and impossible to remove - so stay far away. wang said it was the closest he had ever been to one - but in this garden it was hard to get far away bc the population was so dense.
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i believe kelley told me about cacti that you could not get close to...or got too close to by mistake. sounds like a good day of romping with friends in the desert!
ReplyDeletei've heard about cactuses where you get close to them, and they sense you, and they actually jump out and grab you. but i don't think all chollas do that. randee has a bunch of cactuses in our house that i forget about and run into all the time (i have a bad track record with these suckers). so, you would probably live. i know you are looking forward to more cactuses in AZ !!
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