FEBRUARY 14th

Happy Valentine's Day from Joshua Tree National Park!

OATMAN, ARIZONA

Our first look at OATMAN!  The burros are descendants of the burros the miners left behind.  When the gold mines played out, the miners turned the burros into the hills around Oatman.

Post Office

Nursing burro...

CANDY SHOPPE

At the Candy Shoppe.

"Cowboy Scott Who Scowls a Lot"

"Pretty Pat in her Fancy Hat"  (ha-ha)

These burros are having a snack on the boardwalk!  People feed them carrots and apples from home but can also buy alfalfa cubes.

More burros...

Still more...  We estimate we saw 30 to 40 burros right in town.  Bullhead City is 18 miles away and they have wild burro signs along the roads and highways.

OATMAN HOTEL

The Oatman Hotel is famous for being the destination of Clark Gable and Carole Lombard.  On March 18, 1939 the couple spent their honeymoon in this hotel room. They returned frequently because they enjoyed the solitude and Gable liked playing cards with the miners.

The walls of the bar and restaurant are covered in dollar bills!

The community stages gunfights throughout the day right outside the restaurant.

Always have an ice cream sundae after winning a gunfight!  Good guys always win and then they get ice cream WITH sprinkles!

Our pick-up parked in front of the Oatman Restaurant and Bar.  The hotel is the oldest two-story adobe building in Mohave County.

Scott and a friendly burro.

Put a coin in the machine and this miner will tell your fortune!

Old smelter used to separate gold from the ore.

Cigar store Indian outside the Olive Oatman Saloon.

Surprise!  Do you know who's visiting Oatman the same day we are?  Yes, it's an Oakridge Boy!  William Lee Golden, to be exact.  The group is playing at the Riverside Resort Casino in Laughlin for a week.

He continues down the street, feeding burros, and going unrecognized.

This building was used in the filming of the movie, "How the West Was Won."  Oatman has been the setting of several westerns.

The mine now houses a mining museum.

Telephone wire insulators.

Old tractor

Joshua Tree National Park

JUMBO ROCKS

Is that Scott?

Spent bloom on a Joshua tree.

Look at the thin rock layer in this giant boulder!

                     

SKULL ROCK

Almost all of the campgrounds were situated around huge rock outcroppings. 

JOSHUA TREES

Joshua trees start growing as a single stalk.  Branching occurs when the meristem flowers are eaten by animals.

The Joshua tree is the largest variety of yucca in the United States.  The biggest tree in the park is 42 feet tall with a crown of 34 feet and a trunk 9 feet in diameter. 

In the foreground is a dead Joshua tree.  The average life span of a Joshua tree is 150 years.

KEYS VIEW

Mt. San Jacinto

Coachello Valley

Keys View Road

We had lunch under these rocks.

When I looked up from our picnic table; this is what I saw!

Balanced rocks!

INTERSECTION ROCK

Boy Scouts learning how to rock climb with the help of their scout masters.

Blooming creosote bush.

Yellow blossoms

The Silver Bell Mine operated for approximately 40 years and was very versatile; mining gold in the 1930s, lead in the 1940s, and copper in the 1950s.

Pencil Cholla

Just look at the thorns on the pencil cactus!

CHOLLA GARDEN

Jumping cholla.  Can you see all the little pieces of cactus on the ground?  When walking through the desert those will "jump" from a jumping cholla cactus onto your clothing.  That's how they spread from place to place!

Silver cholla

CHOLLA BLOSSOMS 

OCOTILLOS 

Tiny green leaves cover the branches.

This ocotillo is starting to get red flags at the tips of its branches.

One last look at the Joshua tree; finally saw some along the highway between Searchlight and Henderson, Nevada that were in bloom.

Meristems