Joshua Tree, Pioneertown, and Pappy & Harriets

It was the perfect plan I tell you. We were going to spend one more week in the van upon arriving back in the USA. A week in Joshua Tree National Park, and surrounding area, before moving back into the Airstream. The kink in the plan was this week’s spring break vacation plans of all the ‘normal people’. All camp sites in Joshua Tree were booked, and here we are on a Sunday afternoon thinking we were playing it safe. A Sunday drive *through* the park it is then! I have only ever been able to drive through JTNP, never able to stay a night in it.

During the drive Kerri and I both reminisced of times long past. Back when we both use to think that JTNP consisted of a single Joshua Tree. The sole remaining tree of it’s kind maybe? When we both visited, at different times in our lives, things were so new and exciting. Ah, the pains of a full-time traveler – it becomes “normal” eventually and the excitement can be hard to find sometimes.

The good thing that came from the kink in the plans is that Pappy & Harriet’s (our plan for late in the week) was not far down the road, and wouldn’t you know it, the house band – the very band Kerri so desperately wants to go see – play only on Sunday nights. With no reservation, we put our name on the list and sat at the bar for the 2 hour wait. A stroll through Pioneertown, and a few beers down the hatch quickly nibbled away at the minutes. Before long we were sat, ordered, and enjoying our meals just in time for the band to start playing. A few more drinks and a few more hours of watching the band finished of a very well unplanned day. Afterward we camped right next door, at Camp Pioneertown.

Really can’t ask for a better way to start the USA again.

PS – we drove an unconventional route into the Joshua Tree area and by that route we passed through the Santa Rosa & San Jacinto Mountains National Monument (established in 2000) which we both had no idea existed. Luckily a sign directed us to the Visitor’s Center where we stopped in for a short [paved] hike, then continued on. This makes for my 74th National Park visited since I began my travels back in 2010.