Two week update on being owners of Welcome Station RV Park

March 29, 2014

We enter Joshua Tree National Park on the south end, the dry end, the low end and everything greets us with is lifeless and thirsty, rather like our souls right now, empty and spent seeking and desiring new life and a refreshment of soul and spirit.  We park the first night in an empty lot just outside the boundary of the park, free and good and we enjoy the wind howling around our cozy abode.  We met some folks from BC and talked to them for awhile.  It was good to be unhurried and without a plan and simply savoring being in the moment without expectations or obligations.  We need much of just that, I'm thinking.

The next morning we scout out the Cottonwood Springs campground about 7 miles up the road in our little Peewee truck.  Steve has given the driving of her over to me as the clutch is hurting his left knee, so we make the climb to the campground to find that "heavy metals" have closed the hiking trails.  No matter, the wind is beating us as we look around the campground for a good place for the Queen Bee.  Steve chooses 23B and we're off back to the rig to pick her up and place her in her spot for the next two nights.  We decide to explore the park to see if we want to drive the 40 miles more with the rig to camp.  We find a dust storm, lots of cold blustery wind and some pretty sights but few Joshua trees until we are about 45 minutes up the road.  Our favorite place was Belle campground.  The campground had  sites around huge protruding boulders and wide vista views of the Joshua trees.  But we decided to stay where we were and just explore the day in the aprk.  We had a wonderful lunch protected by a big Juniper bush and I read our Western..the Goodnight trail after savoring a sandwich and an orange.  We saw some sights and drove to 29 Palms and looked at the little visitor center and then drove back to camp. 

 I had seen them...out of the corner of my eye when driving, a burst of blue, a splash of wild color in the brown and crusty desert.   I knew I wanted to see them up close and personal.  I could walk that far from the campground!  Cool!  So the next morning I loaded up my  lumbar pack with water and a few things, got my dog on his leash, sprayed sunscreen and headed out on the search for Canterbury bells.  I had seen the name at the campground hosts information center. 

  It was a lovely morning for a walk, refreshing and a very gentle breeze and the sun not yet hot in the sky.  It was a long walk though, over two miles but on the way there were more gifts, many different kinds and shapes and colors of flowers.  The desert...so dry, so seemingly devoid of life, barren.  My soul has felt like that.  Weary with so much to ponder, so much to do, so overwhelmed by my own downhill spiral of thoughts.  And yet, today on my hike for the quest of the Canterbury bell flower, I saw the dry and barren desert but upon looking closer I was much surprised to find what there was when I looked up close, looked intently, took time to see all around me.    

 I had my phone camera and took pics of those gifts that God gave on the way.  I had almost given up finding the illusive blue flower.  Sometimes that is the way with me, I get tired and discouraged and ready to quit.  Then I spied a wee spot of blue alongside the road.  I stopped and stared.  Yes, the same blue but the one I had seen was large and flourishing.  It must be further on.  I love how God gives us small gifts along the way to  bolster our spirit.  I need to watch for them, see them as that, revel in the grace of them given to me.  Not long from that first spot of blue I see the bursting bloom of blue, blue, blue Canterbury Bells.  Eureka, I found them!

I give thanks right there just for beauty, for strength to walk , for time alone, for the gift of sight to see such magnificent color and I stop to rest as I take in the exquisite beauty of the plant and regard the wonder of how it grows and blooms and sits so beautiful.  I  take many pictures as the breeze blows...I know that it is hard to get the right and clear shot.  Life is like that.  I'm so blessed that God gives us those times to learn and click another moment again, how to speak words of love and grace, how to stop and breathe and enjoy and be joyful with the one in Steve, the Lord has given to me in my life.

 Ocotillo leaves and branches

 Ocotillo blossoms

 Chia

A beautiful flower of which I didn't get the name

The trek was hotter and longer and more uphill on the way back but I was strengthened in my spirit and held on to the joy. 

Some of the other plants I found were Sun Blazing Star, a translucent glowing flower,

 chia not quite blooming but a beautiful plant with aromatic qualities and tiny to be showy purple blossoms, 

the bladder pod plant which was host for the Harlequin bug. 

 Thanks for stopping in and reading!