Fortynine Palms Oasis
10/12/2018: Our hike to Fortynine Palms Oasis was really nice. The Fortynine Palms Oasis seems to be a very well-kept secret. At the end of the trail is an actual Oasis in the middle of the desert. There are Palm trees, water and wildlife (that we didn't see). It was stunningly beautiful and highly recommended. We also saw some very large Barrel cacti. We had seen smaller versions of them, but these were maybe four feet high. They are quite beautiful. We haven't seen any in Joshua Tree that large except for on this hike. A good trail to see wildflowers.
The inward fever of body and brain seems quenched almost as soon as one reclines under the shade of the oasis.
George Warton James, Wonders of the Colorado Desert, 1906
Rod’s Ramblings from the Trail: We are now sitting in our campsite and sucking beers. Our neighbors have not shown up yet but there are several people in the camp that have not yet shown up so not quite sure what’s going on there. I suspect we’ll get our neighbors at 10 or 11 tonight haha. But as I said earlier, if car camping you just have to expect people. Between our two major adventures today we took a walk in the campground for a mile or so and discovered several campsites that if we come back, we will try to get those. But it might be a long time before we come back because we have seen most of the rock formations and you see one Joshua Tree you sort of seen them all. It would be really awesome to load up all the grandchildren someday and bring them down here. They would love running around on the rocks and stuff. I can see kids just going nuts here. Charlie can be the boss of them. Marguerite suggests, and I agree, that we will pack up all the grandkids and visit Death Valley, Joshua Tree, Grand Canyon, maybe Arches, Yellowstone and some other parks and attractions along the way.