Joshua Tree has been on my to-vis­it list for years, and despite the crowds, it did not disappoint.

I arrived ear­ly, I thought, on a Sat­ur­day morn­ing in Feb­ru­ary. But when I pulled over the con­sult my map, I saw a near-con­stant parade of cars and trucks stream­ing in right behind me. So much for that.

Still, like most of the nation­al parks I’ve been to, there’s some­thing elec­tric in the air, crowds or no. It makes me think about what the earth must have looked and felt like just a few thou­sand years and sev­er­al bil­lion peo­ple ago.

The trees at Joshua Tree are cool, of course, but the rock for­ma­tions cre­at­ed a sense of place that I’ll nev­er for­get. I want­ed to see more and soak the place up, but by mid­day the park­ing lots were annoy­ing­ly full of mini­vans, and I end­ed up head­ing back to Palm Springs for nachos and a mar­gari­ta instead.

On my way back, the line of cars wait­ing to get in stretched on for more than a mis­er­able mile. 

I can’t wait to return some­day and explore Joshua Tree prop­er­ly — maybe on a Tues­day, or a Wednesday.