Joshua Tree: Are We On Mars?

After driving around LA and exploring places like Malibu, Ventura and other beaches along the coastline, we decided that we wanted to take the opportunity to continue upwards past Palm Springs and into oblivion. The girls had mentioned their interest in going to Joshua Tree National Park, located past the well-renowned Palm Springs and we decided to go up and spend 48 hours there just to experience some new scenery and check out the "abandoned city".

On the four hour drive up we drove past Redlands to pick up our close friend, Kelsie Carlson, who just recently moved back to California after living in Hawaii for over four years. Kelsie just also happens to be a professional photographer, so we knew we would have some great pictures after the trip to look back on to remind us of our adventure.

We started off our trip by going past Salvation Mountain: "a visionary environment covering a hill in the Colorado Desert, north of Calipatria, northeast of Niland near Slab City, several miles from the Salton Sea." The whole 'mountain' was originally created by one single person and is built up from adobe, straw and is completely covered in "thousands of gallons of lead-free paint."

Salvation Mountain was definitely a cool place to check out, covered in bright colors and texts of salvation. A lot of hard work evidently went into creating such an epic place of art and faith. All of us were absolutely in awe of the vibrancy and funky little passage ways: we felt like we were in a Dr. Seuss cartoon.

We shortly, continued onto Salton Sea, also known as the post-apocalyptic beach town of California. Driving into the city was eerie in itself and seeing the many abandoned houses, churches, community centers just added to the spooky vibe. We drove all the way to where the lake supposedly dried up that once upon was connected to the ocean. Now all that is left are scattered car parts like tires, car seats and as we walked on the dried up dirt I could hear the loud crunching of fish bones. There are still people who reside in Salton City but even those houses gave us chills, as it seemed like nobody wanted to come outside: you could make out faces peering through the window looking at us driving past. Scary stuff... Apparently the city was abandoned due to rising sea levels, but now the front part of the sea has completely dried up... weird.

After we had experienced one too many rounds of goosebumps, we also abandoned Salton Sea City and continued onwards to the city of Joshua Tree. We had rented a cabin in the city, near the national park, for the night and we spent the night by the fire place gossiping, drinking tea and we had a fun little photo shoot too with Kelsie. The next day it was time to properly explore Joshua Tree National Park, and for a split second we all thought we had somehow made it to Mars. We had to go through a gate, pay a fee and follow one single road to be met by large boulders and hundreds (perhaps thousands) of Joshua Tree's in all sizes.

I was so intrigued and surprised at the beautiful landscape that we had found. Everything was so breath-taking, from the plants to the insane sunset that we caught at 4:45 (yes, the sun sets early in California during winter time). Most importantly, it felt so special and exciting to have shared this experience with my best friends who also had never been to Joshua Tree National Park. This is definitely a place we would all highly recommend to anyone who is up for a road trip or weekend adventure. Still in awe of how special and fun those 48 hours were, felt like we were there for at least four days -- saw so many new eye-opening things, as every turn we made would surprise more than the last.

We were caught in a sand storm too, so we all put on bandannas to ensure that we didn't breathe the dirt in. It was also very cold when the sun set and the wind didn't help, so we all definitely had overestimated the desert (thinking it was going to be hot). Good thing we all packed some warm clothes at the bottom of our bags, just in case...

All photo credits go to Kelsie Carlson (@kelsiecarlson) who captured some beautiful moments like below. Adrienne and myself, at the top of one of the boulders taking in the stunning view of what we thought looked like a whole different planet.

Below is a little video that perfectly sums up how euphoric and fabulous we all felt at the top of these boulders in the middle of nowhere. The view was amazing, but so are my stunning/wannabe gangster friends.