Another trip to the wilderness…not really…but into a desert. This time to Joshua Tree National Park but this one was with a difference. In the past few weeks we have covered most of California and started with Arizona. I guess this was one of the last stops as far as camping trips were concerned. Come next week and I’ll be getting ready for a flight to New York!
Joshua Tree national park is a dry, arid land with loads of Joshua Trees all around the place. It is basically a stargazer’s paradise.
To get prepared for the trip we simply took out a car of one of my friends (Sudeep) and left. We required a pair of binoculars and the search began with gaining some know-how about binoculars. Found some really cool links thanks to google. I gained some really important tips about choosing binoculars. Then came the tough part…going and actually buying them. Well… this task for responsible for our delay in reaching the park. We got a really decent pair of binoculars (10×50 for $26.43 incl. tax from Walmart). All along we were wondering whether actually what we had heard (about Joshua being a stargazers paradise et. al) was true. As it turns out it really is a fantastic place but for a novice astronomer, he/she needs to carry a book that explains different constellations that you see. The most amazing part was we got to see a white band of light across the sky which people call as Milky Way!
In fact, we were so mesmerised by the view of the stars that we left the top of the tent open to sleep with the light of the stars creeping in through the top of the tent! Although I can honestly say that it was not the sole reason for leaving the roof open…we were really lazy people 😉
After sleeping for a few hours, we got up with the sun really beating down on our tent with gusto and left for Key View point. The nights are completely different from the days…at night the beauty of the sky and the cool breeze makes one feel really comfortable but in the morning it almost pains to see the desert…but I guess that’s what is the nature’s diversity! Then after visiting key view we made our way back to LA and on our way stopped by at Artesia for some good Indian Buffet Lunch!
All in all, a different but exciting trip into the desert!
-Rajat.