The Californian desert is home to many strange humans. It seemed like everyone who didn’t fit the costly California beach town vibe for either ethical or financial reasons came to the desert. It wasn’t as obvious yet as it was further in the south, but the vibes were definitely very hippie, hobo and alternative. The all-year around perfect weather lead many people to live in their trailers in the area, the possibility to basically live for free on BLM lands around the desert towns was the exact opposite of 3000$ condos on the coast. It was basically hobo heaven.

The little town outside the national park was just called as the park itself, Joshua tree, maybe the park was named after the town, or they were both named after the famous tree… google should know. It was basically a wide street with a few buildings and shops on either side. I had been on the road for a while, some work needed to be done but it was too warm outside and there weren’t enough hours of work to justify paying for a hotel, so I visited the local library.
Located in California, Joshua tree was one of the more popular parks in the United States. It was low season so sleeping in random places wasn’t looked for by the authorities. I spent the first night close to the park, somewhere in the middle of the desert. My second night was spent in town just outside the park and the third further in the valley at a lower altitude, no worries with being woken up as it was on BLM land. There was a noticeable difference in temperatures at night, even though the difference in altitude between the two sleeping spots was only about 400m. The park itself was amazing again, I liked how every park more or less had a thing that made it special, here it was a type of tree, called the “Joshua tree” I drove in for sunrise on my first day, I had strategically picked the sleeping spot just outside the park. I slept on a hillside overlooking the little town. The sunrise itself wasn’t that spectacular, as it came up behind the clouds, but the tree and rock formations made up for it and the light was still kinda interesting. I checked out a few of the signposted attractions (mainly rock formations with trees in front or besides them) on the way and once midday came around I went to the little town and visited the local library for a work session and laundry. As I said earlier the place was very hippie or alternative, so the tiny library was full with hobos just hanging out. I actually spent the whole afternoon sitting next to a man who smelled just so bad, was drunk and talked way too loud with his homie on the other side of the table. It was the smallest library of the trip as well, basically just a big room a bunch of hobos and a cute old lady. I pushed through and once I was finished with work, sunset was waiting. I went to the main area of the park and started climbing around the massive rocks to get a good view and hiked around the valley to find a good spot for sunset, semi successful, a ridge was blocking the late sunlight.