Thanksgiving in California: A Day in Joshua Tree National Park

I didn't photograph every single Joshua tree, but not for lack of trying.

Here's our first day in California--at the beach!
Here's our second day in California--in San Diego!

After leaving the dog beach in San Diego, we took the long drive to Joshua Tree National Park. On the way, we managed to eat at the grossest roadside restaurant that I have ever tasted--seriously, two of us couldn't even eat our meals, they were so gross--and we managed to see the grossest tourist site that I have ever seen. Salton Sea is foul, smells like death, and the children legitimately thought that we were going to die there, so that was pretty fun.

Oh, and this happened:

This is actually just a photo that I accidentally took as I was turning off the video feature on my camera as we were leaving a border patrol checkpoint. I'm just going to come out and say it: I am filled with righteous anger at the border patrol. I think they overstep their authority and contribute to the nationalistic, xenophobic mindset that's just a baby step away from Nazis in the streets. Back before the kids and I went to Canada we figured out (thanks to the ACLU) a strategy of noncompliance if we encountered them--no, I will not show you my driver's license. Am I free to go? No, I do not consent to a search of my car. Am I free to go?, etc.--but we thankfully didn't happen upon any during our trip, even though they were, indeed, blocking entire highways for hours at a time up in Maine where we were traveling.

But of course southern California is practically the axis mundi of Trump's nationalistic, xenophobic bullying, so of course the entire highway that we were on was shut down, cars at a standstill, for a border patrol checkpoint. 

Friends, I was loaded for bear. I was ready for noncompliance. Honestly, I was probably going to lose my temper, call the border patrol agent a baby jailer, and go to jail, myself, but whatever. If we can easily pass, it's our job to make big old donkeys of ourselves in order to inconvenience the baby jailers. The fact is, though, that we pass too easily. We're, like, the whitest Americans in America, practically. I'm the only one of us who isn't blonde! So the car hadn't even rolled to a complete stop when the border patrol agent peeked through the driver's side window and simply waved us on.

The car just in front of us, though? The drug sniffing dog started barking its head off at THAT car, it pulled off to the side, and the kids practically glued themselves to the windows to see what was going down as we passed.

Having accomplished practically every headache to be found in Southern California, we booked it towards Joshua Tree with the goal of stargazing that night. Unfortunately, as with the other National Dark Sky Preserve that the kids and I visited just a few months ago, it was too cloudy to see much, and we couldn't quite manage to navigate to a good stargazing spot. Still, we gave it plenty of effort, didn't completely freeze our buns off, I took this one photo that I actually like quite a lot:




That's me, without a tripod, using my car as a stationary object and failing to photograph Orion.

Fortunately, the next day was absolutely perfect. Just beautiful.

The bigger kid had been longing to see the desert. I think that an entire landscape of cacti will suit nicely!

Matt is only pretending to touch the cactus... I think:

There's for sure nothing blossoming back in Indiana in November!

My bigger kid is the worst person to hike with. As soon as you hit the trail, she takes off as far ahead as she can get:

Probably so she can sneak off and TOUCH THE CACTI!!!

Our first desert critter!

There are tons of short hikes to take and places to explore along the main roads through Joshua Tree. We hopped out several times to explore:

The kids' favorite activity by far was scrambling around the giant boulders and hills:

And, of course, I photographed NEARLY every single Joshua tree in the park, or at least I did my best to!

All that climbing wore the kids out so badly that they were decidedly unenthusiastic about the mill hike that the adults wanted to go on (and to be fair, hiking through sand SUCKS!), but they slogged along with us anyway:

There are all these abandoned artifacts off the trail, just left where they are to weather and look picturesque:

We didn't actually die on the trail, although it kind of felt like we would at times, but instead we made it safely back to the ranger station, where the kids took their oaths and earned their Junior Ranger badges AND their Junior Paleontologist badges!

From Joshua Tree National Park, it was essentially a straight shot to Anaheim. But what's that off in the distance?

DINOSAURS?!?

Detour time!!!

Shockingly True Story: the dinosaurs are now owned by Young Earth Creationists, of all people, and you can go into the gift shop, look up and around, and see where they've tried to paint over the plaques displaying the succession of human evolution that the original owner created. We did that, but otherwise tried to ignore the rhetoric, and we certainly didn't give them any money! You can take all the photos that you want of these sweet babies for free!

I LOVE DINOSAURS SO MUCH!!!!!!!

Anyway, after we finally tore ourselves away from our sweet, sweet dinosaurs, we continued on our straight shot to Anaheim. We checked into our hotel, just a mile and a half walk from the entrance to Disneyland, and we went to bed early. Because it was the night before Thanksgiving, and the next day, Thanksgiving Day, we were going to celebrate the holiday in the most American way possible:

We were going to spend 16 hours in the happiest place on Earth!

Thanksgiving in California: 36 Hours in San Diego

Here's our first day in California--at the beach!

My father-in-law is a Navy vet and thanks to him, we were able to stay on the naval base in San Diego for one night. Here's what the beach looks like outside the Navy Lodge:

Here's what my husband looks like after coming upon me lying flat on my back in the sand, camera in hand so I can photograph the helicopters that keep flying directly overhead:

And here's one of the helicopters:

If you blow up the photo enough, you can see that there is totally someone sticking their helmeted head out the door and looking down at me. They're thinking, "Why is that crazy lady lying in the sand taking photos? Must be a spy!"

That's probably not the last time somebody thought that we were spies, either. I photographed EVERYTHING. Who knows when I'll get to sightsee on a military base again!

After we finally managed to drag the kids out of the water, my father-in-law took us on a driving tour so that I could photograph everything else. There were aircraft carriers (we were back at this particular aircraft carrier later in the evening for "Taps," but I had a giant Starbucks coffee in my hands instead of my camera, darn it)--

Yes, I'm going to show you all sides of every aircraft carrier I saw. I'm also humming the "Top Gun" theme at you, just so you know:

--and submarines--

Yes, I'm photographing a submarine THROUGH A FENCE. I'm totally a spy.

--and the most expensive, ugliest destroyer ever built:

The kids had already been to Cabrillo National Monument before with their grandparents (and earned their Junior Ranger badge, because of COURSE), but Matt and I have never been, so we stopped by for a quick look.

Look, another destroyer!

There's a handy spotting guide at the overlook:

I didn't photograph the commissary, either, but we did get road trip snacks and the best bar of soap EVER while we were there. I did not buy a massive toy model aircraft carrier (darn it). The older kid super wanted a Navy sweatshirt, but we did not buy that, either. Our luggage was already worryingly overweight.

Instead, here's an installation of Bob Hope doing USO tours:



It's really beautiful. Next to it, though, is a giant recreation of Unconditional Surrender, which was really gross because every single person was photographing themselves pretending to look up the nurse's skirt.

Nice way to casually degrade women, Tourists!

The next day, we really needed to leave San Diego and end up at Joshua Tree National Park, but first, we had to make two stops at the kids' top requests.

First, doughnuts for the littler kid!

The night before, we'd stayed at a hotel across from Balboa Park with valet service. As the valet handed Matt the keys to the car that morning, he asked where we were headed, and I told him we were going to Donut Bar.

"You really need to try Devil's Dozen," he replied.

So we did both. I mean, of course. And you know what?

We all liked Devil's Dozen better. So thank you, anonymous valet!

This butterbeer doughnut is from Donut Bar:

While Matt and the big kid were in San Diego by themselves, they'd checked out a dog-friendly beach that was right by their hotel. The big kid LOVED it and longed to go back, so before we left San Diego entirely, we did just that. It turned out to be so awesome, indeed, that we accidentally spent the entire morning there:

The kids really loved random doggies coming up to make friends. And a dog only peed on the big kid's sand castle once, and that was after she was finished working on it, anyway.

I didn't get any photos of us actually swimming in the water, but we totally did. It was cold, yeah, but not after the first couple of seconds. Practically nothing to us ice-in-the-bones frozen Midwesterners:

Well, we WERE pretty cold when we finally finished swimming...

No matter, though, because all we did was hop back in the rental car and hit the road. We were on our way to chollo cacti and Joshua trees!