Joshua Tree

The Cholla Cactus Garden.  If you walk too close to this kind of cactus, some little prickly balls will velcro onto your clothes.

 One thing that we did during our roadtrip that wasn't visiting people was to spend a couple days at Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California.  I liked the idea of going to a National Park that was on our route during our trip, and I also liked the idea of being in warm, non-wintery places, so that is how I decided on Joshua Tree.  I would love to go back during the spring and see how the desert blooms with color and flowers.  It was still pretty for us in early February, but it was the dormant period.  There was a video to watch at a visitor center and it mentioned the Sahara desert (just north of where we live in Mali) and how the "desert" is so named for being deserted, void of life.  The kind of deserts found in Joshua Tree Park are very full of life.  And I learned that they even get a bit of snow there sometimes.  Not at all like the Sahara!

JP on our hike.

JP resting at the oasis.

My favorite part of our time in Joshua Tree was an early morning hike we did.  We went up and down a mountainy trail to get to the oasis where there is always a little stream of water and some palm trees. 
There was a sign that showed all of the different plants and animals to watch out for.  I only saw birds, no wild mountain sheep or anything else exciting.  But I can now identify several kinds of cactus that I didn't know before.
The other best part of the park for me was walking around an old abandoned homestead.  We went to a ranger program where a woman told the story of the people who lived there, so after that we had to go check it out.  There were walls left but no roof from the house, and lots of old junk laying around to see.  The people who lived there were trying to mine for gold and they learned how to live well in the desert. 

Mostly I enjoyed being in the sunshine and nice temperatures and seeing the gorgeous landscapes and crazy plants.

Old rusty tin cans at the abandoned homestead.

JP with a very large Joshua Tree.

more about our roadtrip

We are back in Minnesota after almost 6 weeks of traveling around America.  The trip was so amazing that it is hard to figure out how to write about it in brief.  I think that knowing people in so many places is cool and I am glad that I could visit friends and family around the country.  But it is also hard to say goodbye and know that it will be some years before we see each other again.  I know some really wonderful people!  When I am in Mali I miss certain things about America and when I am in America I miss certain things about Mali.  Sometimes I wish that all of the people I love could all be my neighbors so I could see them all the time.  Maybe it's like that in heaven.  I know it could be a lot harder and I am thankful for the ways I can stay in touch with people easily through modern technology.  For missionaries in the past it was much more difficult.  Just 15 years ago I wouldn't have had a cellphone or easy internet access in Mali.  It makes the world seem smaller to think that at any moment in Mali I can just dial up my mom and at the same time her phone rings thousands of miles and an ocean away and (for about 40 cents a minute) we can talk.

So enough of my rambling and back to the roadtrip:  JP got some really good experience driving in the states.  We were never stopped by the police.  The only car trouble we had was one flat tire (or rather I was driving on a low tire which someone pointed out to me and we had to put the spare on, no biggie.) We had to go through 3 border patrol/immigration checks when we were near Mexico.  I would have liked to cross into Mexico, but that wasn't possible because JP's USA visa is single entry, so we can't go to Canada either.  At 2 of the border control places they just looked at us and waved us through.  But at one they asked if we were both US citizens. I said that JP is from Africa and they made us pull over and find his passport to look at.  We almost ran out of gas once.  The light was on for a long time telling me that the gas was low, but we were in the middle of nowhere in southwestern Texas.  There is nothing there for a long time.  Finally an exit with a gas station appeared and I was able to get some gas, even if they were charging an extra dollar a gallon!  We were lucky because the gas prices were lower that they'd been in years during our trip.  When we left MN it was about $1.89 (it's up to $2.25 in MN now) and the highest prices were in California at about $2.59.  We enjoyed all kinds of weather along the way, but now we are back to below 0 freezing cold winter in Minnesota.  We've been inside a lot since we've been back!