Joshua Tree in December

Before heading off to Oceanside, CA, we (my cousins Angie & Krystle, aunt, uncle) decided to stop by Joshua Tree National Park. If you keep up with the blog, you’d know that I was at the park earlier last year, as well as back in 2014 through a flashback post!

The two visits I’ve made to the park have always been on extremely sunny days. With that, it was a different experience coming at six in the morning with temperatures at 38°F. It was gloomy, freezing but still beautiful at the same time.

When we arrived, the park gates were opened but there were no attendants so we were able to get into the park easily. Our first stop was to pull over and just take in the scenery.

Seriously though, these rocks and trees are so beautiful. Sequoia NP will always have my heart but Joshua Tree NP comes in at second place, especially now that I was able to experience it in much colder temperatures. Also, there’s really something special about having a place all to yourself. It was early so the park was empty besides the five of us.

After climbing some rocks and taking thousands of photos, we made our way to Keys View. Since the entrance was empty, we weren’t given a map of the park and with no cellular service, we drove to Keys View without guidance. We made a wrong turn at first but after analyzing the roads, we found the place!

Joshua Tree National Park is truly a beautiful place. If our hotel check-out wasn’t at 11AM that same day, we would’ve gone on the dirt path and explored deeper and further but time was not with us that day. After exploring what we could, we made our way out and stopped by Sonic for a quick breakfast.

We got back to the hotel, checked out and drove to the beach to continue our Christmas road trip.