Day 3 ~ Joshua Tree National Park,

Tuesday morning, we headed to the Joshua Tree National Park.  It is an enormous park, the entrance to the park was about 45 miles from our resort, but it was another hour or so drive from the entrance to the parts that we wanted to see.

When you enter the park, you get a map with what is essentially a menu of all the hikes & camp grounds on the park.  We picked the two shortest hikes we could find and headed over.

The park is over 500,000 acres, and includes the Colorado & the Mojave deserts.  We found the Mojave desert to be much more interesting than the Colorado.  Fortunately, we started with the Colorado, so we didn't have to end our trip with an hour & a half of looking at not-super-interesting rocks.  "Hey look kids, more rocks!"

The first hike we did was a 1.3 mile "hike" (both hikes we did were pretty flat) to the Barker Dam.  It was built by ranchers to water their cows.

This area didn't seem especially hospitable to any sort of living creature, but especially not grazing cattle.

Keith, of course, found the dam rather fascinating.

On our way back from this hike, we ran into a couple with a little boy a little older than Parker.  We were again reminded of how glad we were that he was at home.  The mom was carrying the little guy, and dad was following with a toy lawn mower.  That just doesn't sound like fun for anyone.

Our 2nd hike was a one-mile loop to the "Hidden Valley", a prime hide-out for cattle rustlers.

Man, I look pregnant in this picture!

The weather was quite nice for the trip, but by the time we finished our 2nd "hike", I was exhausted, Keith was out of water, and the temperature was quickly exceeding 100-degrees.  Time to head back to the air conditioning.  We went back to Rancho Mirage for lunch and a movie.

I can't remember the last time I saw a matinee (especially on a Tuesday), but we saw two on this trip.  A movie seems like a tragic waste of daylight, but when it's 107 outside, an air-conditioned theater seems like a pretty good idea.