Wacky and Weird Joshua Tree National Park, an experience right out of a Dr. Seuss book! – early August 2007

Wacky and Weird Joshua Tree National Park, a psychedlic experience
We spent one more week in Venice Beach with Aaron and Chris, but this time around, we were primarily occupied with making sure that Stephane’s immigration papers were in order.

Now that we’re here in the U.S., he is applying for legal permanent residence. We had already spent a lot of time working on his immigration papers before we left for our two-week trip in California. We had gone to the immigration office downtown and we collected copies of birth certificates, our marriage certificate, bank statements, vaccination cards, and other proof that we’re living together as a bona fide couple (not just living together for immigration purposes). Documents had to be translated from French into English. Stephane completed his required doctor’s appointments. After having waited a couple of weeks on translated documents from France that never did arrive, we finally found a translator in the U.S. who could do it last-minute. Last minute, because time was now running short. We only had one week left before the filing fees went up by more than 300% on July 30. As it was, we just made it, completing and posting the paperwork only 20 minutes before the close of the post office on the last day before the fee increase!

We were finally ready to start our bike journey across the U.S. And so we said our good-byes to Aaron and Chris and headed east towards Joshua Tree National Park, which was our first stop.

We had wanted to camp in the town of Palm Springs, not far from Joshua Tree, but the problem was that a neo-Nazi methhead hanging around had overhead the young men who had told us where a good spot in town was. My first warning sign was when he asked the local boys where he could find the nearest Nazi group. The second warning sign was when he asked to sleep in our tent with us. When we told him we were going to get a motel room, he then asked if he could share the room with us! His behavior was so strange; I didn’t know what was wrong with him. But I knew I instinctively distrusted him. Well, there went the one possible camping spot in town. No way I was going to go there to chance him following us later on.

So, with heavy feelings, as it was very late and very dark and my migraine threatened to explode my head into a million pieces (God, it was so much hotter here than in L.A.!), we biked on through Palm Springs and found the intersection where the one “cheap” motel in the whole city was supposed to be. Only, it was no longer there. As we contemplated what to do, a woman crossed the street on her bike to talk to us. It was M-Flo, the answer to our prayers, who said she was biking around town in order to sober up before driving back to her house in Joshua Tree. She was a bike mechanic and former bike courier who was interested in our bicycle trip, and so she immediately asked us if we wanted to come back to her house with her. I was ecstatic at the thought of sleeping in a cool house and not being woken at the break of dawn by the oppressive heat. And so we loaded up our bikes on her bike rack and headed to J-tree.

She was grateful that the extra time needed to load up our bikes had allowed her to sober up and avoid a DUI, and I was grateful that she said we could stay at her house until my migraine got under control. We ended up staying four nights at her place. I slept a lot, and Stephane cooked meals as a way to thank her for her hospitality. Thanks Michelle!

When we left Michelle, we biked through Joshua Tree National Park, the park whose trees were made famous by the rock band U2’s album entitled “Joshua Tree.” The landscape of Joshua Tree was wacky, weird, and psychedelic – like something straight out of a Dr. Seuss book! It was completely and totally unique. The two defining characteristics of the park (which is the meeting point of the Mohave and Colorado deserts) are the large stacks of eroded boulders piled on top of each other and the Joshua tree itself. The twisted and spiky J-tree is not actually a tree, but rather a giant member of the lily family that is in the subgroup of flowering plants that includes grasses and orchids. It is the signature plant of the Mohave.

With its rugged and twisted rock mountains, exposed granite monoliths, washes, unusual, spiky trees, sandy terrain, and unlimited horizons, J-tree has some of the most interesting geological displays in California and the richest desert flora in the state. It also has desert animals, such as the antelope squirrel, the kangaroo rat, the stinkbug, and the sidewinder. We saw all of these, but the most abundant were the hopping jackrabbit, the quick roadrunner, and the howling coyote. The whole scene is one right out of the “The Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote” cartoon series. M-Flo swears the cartoon’s creators dreamt it up while smoking in Joshua Tree National Park!