Tom's National Park Adventure

Today was my fourth day in Joshua Tree National Park. It was my second day to hang out with Liam. The day started a little differently. Liam slept in until 7:30am. He had had a busy couple of days.

We fed ourselves and headed back into the park in search of new adventure. We drove to a trail called the Hall of Horrors. Along the way we spotted some wildlife. It was some kind of animal coming down the road towards us. It looked like it was hoping. Neither of us could figure out what the heck it was! We were able to catch a picture as it loped by us. It turns out it was a three legged Coyote! I was so surprised to see a Coyote on the road in the bright sunlight of the morning. But to see one that looked pretty darn heathy with only three legs ! That has to be a pretty rare thing!

Any way…. Back to the Hall of Horrors. We couldn’t figure out why this area of the park had been given such a name tag. The rocks all looked very climbable. We decided that it must have been named that due to the inordinate number of very long tailed lizards we saw while hiking there! There were some interesting flowers and cactus there too.

This area has been the only area of the park where there have been signs indicating different climbs with their outdoor ratings listed.

We left that area and drove over to the Arched Rock / Heart Rock trail. I had already done part of this trail by myself, but Liam hadn’t been there yet. Besides….. I hadn’t seen the “Heart Rock”.

Liam and I were able to see both attractions while doing this hike. Liam later told me that he enjoyed this trail more than any of the others that we have done over the last two days!

All in all a very nice morning. Then the temperature started rising. Time to get some lunch.

Liam took off after lunch. I have been hiding in the shade from the heat and unrelenting sunlight.

It’s about that time to wait for the sunset