Joshua Trees

A Joshua Tree is like a cross between a palm tree and a cactus. Apparently they only grow in and around the national park and can't be found anywhere else in the world. I went camping in the Joshua Tree National Forest this past weekend with friends: Jason, Leng, Bo, Mihai, Albert, and Brandon. On the drive up I sampled my music for Albert and discovered that all my music is emo...not sure how I feel about this...kind of sad and mopey. haha. jk. I'm not that emo.

First stop was Integratron! Apparently this place has a high magnetic field so they built this dome thing in the middle of it and hold sound baths. They take large quarts bowls and play each of them to create this loud enveloping sound. You feel super relaxed and probably fall asleep. I didn't sleep, my body felt super relaxed and I was trying to relax my brain but if you know me my brain never stops. Anyway it was pretty cool. An hour and a half went by in what seemed like minutes. I would definitely go again. It was a great calming way to start a weekend.

After the sound bath, we went to set up camp. I hung up my hammock and we split wood. Aparently Californians don't know how to use a hammer, but I taught them how. Thanks dad for all those years of putting us to work when we were kids. We tried to fit in a quick hike to catch the sunset, but missed it by about 30 mins or so. We also missed the trail, but thats ok. We ended up hiking in the dark for about 2 miles which was pretty cool in my opinion, but I think others were less enthused by the not being able to see stuff. That night we had tacos and popcorn and hung out by the fire until well past midnight just talking. I slept in my hammock under the stars. I love the stars.

Sunday morn we had bacon and egg tacos cooked by Jason and Leng, then we drove into the park to scramble around on rocks and stuff. We goofed around, went to hike around Barker Dam, scrambled some more and then went to find some lunch. Brandon took us to a cafe called Crossroads where we pigged out and started to food coma. After that we bought some gear, went back to another part of the park and scrambled some more until we finally found some good rocks to hang out on while we waited for the sunset. The sun fell back behind the mountains really quickly, but it was nice. After that we headed back to camp to make dinner and eat some more. haha. We finished burning all the wood, cooked steaks, pineapple, spinach, brussel sprouts and baked some bananas with chocolate, marshmellow and grahamcrackers. Albert, Mihai, Brandon and I left that night so that we could avoid traffic the next day since we had to work half days at least.

It felt like a nice long weekend with lots of laughs and adventure. I can't wait until we go again.