Spring Break 2024 had us traveling out west to California. After a wonderful visit with family in northern California, we took a short flight south, to Palm Springs. Our main objective there was to finally visit a national park that’s been high on our bucket list for a long time: Joshua Tree National Park. It did not disappoint! All three of us absolutely loved exploring the huge, rugged rocks, miles of cacti and a few bright pink blooms along the way. About half-way through the drive you’ll come across the magnificent Cholla Cactus Garden. We had never seen anything like it! Beautiful and odd at the same time. As I read in one review of this national park, it will seem to put you in the middle of a Dr. Seuss book with its unusual looking surroundings. So true! And of course, the highlight was taking in one Joshua Tree after another, each seeming to be magnificent in its own way. The legend, you may not know, is that Mormon immigrants named the tree after the biblical figure, Joshua, seeing that the limbs of the tree seemed to reach up toward the sky, as Joshua would reach his hands up to the sky in prayer.

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