{"id":3627,"date":"2022-03-23T01:23:07","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T05:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/?p=3627"},"modified":"2022-03-23T01:23:07","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T05:23:07","slug":"joshua-tree-national-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/?p=3627","title":{"rendered":"Joshua Tree National Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 22, 2022<\/h3>\n

Map and road video of today’s journey<\/a><\/p>\n

Today I visited Joshua Tree National Park as I continued my westward path into California. It was my first visit to this park and I wasn’t too sure of what to expect since the National Park Service does not make the brochure available online.<\/p>\n

The reality is that there is a variety of interesting features about the park. Obviously, there are many Joshua trees but there are also unusual cacti, huge outcrops of massive boulders, great views and, as Raphael mentioned to me yesterday, some of the darkest skies in America. The park sits at the boundary between two deserts, the Mojave and Colorado, and the local population is tiny but, unfortunately, haze from the coastal cities does somewhat spoil the views.<\/p>\n

I visited the three most recommended spots in the park, according to most reviews.<\/p>\n

\"JoshuaThis is the Cholla Cactus Garden. Not, of course, a man-made garden but a natural stand of these cacti on the boundary between the deserts that stretches for about half a mile.<\/p>\n

\"JoshuaTwo of the features for which the park is known a Joshua tree and a distinctive boulder outcrop.<\/p>\n

\"JoshuaAnother spectacular formation of boulders. These are a form of granite, formed below the surface, that was split vertically and horizontally as the surrounding rock was eroded away to expose the outcrop.<\/p>\n

The trees are slow growing, about 1 to 3 inches a year, but some are over 40 feet (12 m) high.<\/p>\n

\"Joshua<\/a>The view of the Coachella Valley as seen from the Keys View trail. Click for a full-size version.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

March 22, 2022 Map and road video of today’s journey Today I visited Joshua Tree National Park as I continued my westward path into California. It was my first visit to this park and I wasn’t too sure of what to expect since the National Park Service does not make the brochure available online. The … Continue reading Joshua Tree National Park<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,91],"tags":[45,93],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3627"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3627"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3639,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3627\/revisions\/3639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}