Day 17, Tuesday March 17th: St Paddy's Day in Joshua Tree NP

We had a great night at the BLM campsite just south of JT NP, it was hot, but we still slept well. 

Opening the door on Tuesday Morning

We awoke to a beautiful sunrise. 

The next paragraph is a vent on filing taxes, you might want to skip it:

I was up early and have finally received all of my forms to finish my income taxes and get them submitted.  I did all I could before we left and was just awaiting my forms from Bridgeview Harbour Marina, it should be easy. After several hours of fighting with Turbo Tax, and an hour on the phone with them, I was not able to complete them.  It should not be this complicated for a citizen to file taxes and Turbo Tax over the years has become horrible. I just want to get a list of my forms and edit them without TT treating me like a child, but you no longer can do that. They bury what they are doing in a bunch of confusing questions and you can't just pull up a form.  I could not believe the guy said, well that is the way the system work and then said when you fill out the survey about our call, remember it is just about me and not how TT works with the online version, maybe you should try the desktop version.....what a crock. I will not be using TT next year...and I am going to waste another day or two of my vacation trying to figure it out...or file an extension. End or rant.

After giving up on my taxes, we set out for JT NP (in a bad mood). From the BLM campsite, which is only about a mile from the JT NP entrance, to our next planned campsite, Belle Campground in JT NP, it is over 30 miles. Joshua Tree is a BIG park.

We stopped at the Visitor Center just inside the gate and spoke with the ranger at the desk, he had the personality of a rock (yes I was still in a bad mood), you would think that they would make sure the  public facing employees were a bit more chipper and competent. I asked about hiking and told him we planned to try to get a site at Belle campground, which is a first come first serve campground because all the big campgrounds were booked and most said nothing bigger than 20ft in the sites. The ranger replied that they will be all booked and there was no chance we would get a site. That was discouraging but, we were going to give it a go anyway, my mood was unchanged. 

It turns out that the ranger is an idiot (as I suspected), we pulled into Belle campground around 10:00 and their were plenty of open sites. We picked one of the prettiest.  My mood took a big swing, all was right in the world. 

Belle Campground JT NP

Our campsite backed up to a large boulder formation that reminded us of the campsite we had in Arches National Park. 

The rules for the first come first server sites is you have to claim your site and go pay ($25/night) at the North Entrance gate within an hour.  It is about a 15mile round trip to the gate, we unloaded the scooter. 

Hockey Tape Repair

As I unloaded the scooter I realized I lost a windshield mount between Texas and here, oh well...nothing hockey tape can't fix.  Never travel without hockey tape!

After paying for two nights, getting setup and a quick snack, we set out for our first hike. We decided to do something short since it was in the 90's and picked the Skull Rock Trail. Shull Rock is probably the most touristy, but you have to do it if you come to JT NP.

Skull Rock

Skull Rock had a lot of people climbing all around it, it was hard to get a decent picture.

Skull Rock Hike

The Skull Rock hike is about 1.7 miles and we took an off shoot called the Discovery Trail, that added a little so it was about a 2 mile hike. I forgot to turn off my tracker, so it included the scooter ride from the trail head back to camp (~7miles). Having the scooter makes getting to and from the trail head and parking easy. 

The hike includes lots of Joshua trees and unique rock formations. 

Elephant Rock?

June thinks this rock formation looks like an elephant. 

Joshua Tree

This is a Joshua Tree, they are ubiquitous 😊 here.  

Belle Campground

It was hot, so after the hike we returned to camp and hid in the shade, there was a breeze which made it bearable. 

I spent a good amount of time trying to find camping on the Cali coast for the next few nights, without much success. Inside the park there is no cell service, but luckily we have the Starlink Mini which I have mounted with suction cups in our Serenity Skylight. It works better than I had hoped.  Despite being fully connected I could not find any sites along the coast on Friday or Saturday.  I even called the California State Park reservation phone and they were not able to help. I did book a site for Thursday night, but have nothing for Friday or Saturday. I spoke with brother Tom and he suggested I just drive to a homeless encampment, there are lots in Cali...Hmm, I don't think that is a good solution.  We will be winging it, as usual. 

Around 16:30 June said let's go for a short hike right from the campground. She got her water bottle and we circled the campground twice without finding a trail....so I used AllTrails which did take us to a trail to get over to Arch and Heart Rock.  It was about a mile to get to those trails from our campground.  About a 1/2 mile into the hike, I asked June to share her water.....she basically was carrying an empty bottle, we drank it all on the first hike today, "that is when the fight started".  I had to be nice because I don't want to carry my own 😏.

Arch and Heart Rock

We hiked to the Heart Rock first and then the Arch Rock, round trip it was about 3.8 miles not counting the two laps around the campground...I was thirsty when we got back!

Heart Rock

Heart Rock certainly does look like a Heart. 

Arch Rock

Arch Rock is not as impressive as what we saw in Arches NP, but it certainly is an Arch. 

Back at camp we grilled burgers and had a cold beer, best we could do for Saint Patrick's Day. At least were were wearing green 👽.

Wednesday we plan to get out early to hike before it gets too hot.