Camping at Jumbo Rocks

In the desert, springtime comes once during the year, so we did an overnight camping trip to Joshua Tree National Park. Through the eastern side of the park, the creosote bushes glow with yellow...



And the spidery ocotillo cacti blooms with red.



At the Jumbo Rocks campground, we pitched our tent. Hikaru called our campsite "home", and in many ways, shouldn't "home be where your heart is" -- as they say? Whether home is our tent or a wooden box, it shouldn't matter.



We spent our afternoon walking among the boulders. We watched lizards. We watched ants carry a caterpillar away. We saw flowers.

The cactus below is called a hedgehog cactus, but the beauty of its flower is better described by the photo.



And the desert marigolds are really golden.



Hikaru just likes to climb onto the top of a rock and sit there. It's difficult to capture a photo of a moving target like a 4-year-old kid, but this was a good opportunity.



And this bit of orange color is the desert Globemallow...



We found ladybugs on the flowers, so Hikaru is trying to get them to crawl onto his hand.



Unfortunately, they must have been the "wild desert" kind of ladybug. They just flew off into the wind.



This greenish-yellow flower is of a cholla cactus. I wish I knew desert plants better, since the flowers resemble that of other cactus.



Hopefully, I'll get a better identification on these desert flowers later. But just because you don't know the exact name of something, doesn't mean that you can't appreciate the beauty.



And of course, Joshua Tree National Park is known for the big rocks too, and the rocks here are certainly "Jumbo Rocks".



Finally, a "family photo" before we return "home" to our campsite for dinner.