Joshua Tree for Thanksgiving...

Thanksgiving has never been my favorite holiday.  Then it seemed that horrible things always happened on or around Thanksgiving.  One of my grandparents was always in the hospital, my Papa passed away right before Thanksgiving, Pat & I got COVID.  So yeah.  Never really a fan.  The only time I really enjoyed it was the few years my mom hosted a "Friendsgiving".  But those are no longer, and I'm just over the damn holiday.  Well - happy to find out so is Pat.  So - I had the idea of going to the desert instead.  It's been calling to me.  I haven't been in so many years, and it seems a perfect time to run away for a few days.  Run away to quiet after either a shitty year or a really good one.  Go out there to reset, celebrate, recover, whatever is needed.  And right before the holiday season - which I do love - it just makes sense.

The unfortunate part is we kinda decided a little too late, so the pickings were slim.  We did find a cute little tiny house and made it work.  We only did one night (Thanksgiving Night) since we were kind of throwing it together last min.  It ended up being good, because Pat was sick with a sinus infection that put quite a damper on the trip.  Poor guy just wasn't feeling the best, so we didn't do a whole lot.  But what we did do was just lovely and it was a perfect 1st trip and 1st start of a new tradition to test it out.  And it passed.

We headed out early on Thanksgiving morning to no traffic and sailed to Joshua Tree National Park.  It was very cool.  We drove around and stopped at random spots.  We did realize we needed to pack much warmer next time.  Like thermals and gloves.  It was super chilly.  We also learned that it's not super Poe friendly, so we were quite limited on where we could stop/wander throughout the park.

Apparently everyone else had the same idea...we were in line about 25 min or so to get into the park

We made and Brrrrrrr!

Beautiful look out but freezing!

Poe taking in the sites

Seriously mom..

Poe in Joshua Tree

Really wanted to do some scrambling.  

I was trying to do my one and only geocache here but major fail

Is that a tombstone...yes yes it is.

After this we hit the air bnb and relaxed a bit before dinner.

So the place had no kitchen, but did have a little grill.  So we planned to just cut up some stuff for a salad and Pat would grill burgers.  We decided smores would be fun so we got the makings for that too.  A lot of work and quite difficult with no kitchen but we managed!  We then just played cards and chilled.  I did manage to get a little star gazing in, but it was soooo cold (gotta bring my thermals next time!) but wow was that breathtaking!  Sun set was lovely as well.

Well hello pretty sunset!

Desert nights

We did pretty good!

My kind of "Thanksgiving"

This was when I was star gazing.  Joshua Tree has a lot more life now, and there were more lights around the property I wish weren't there, but you can still even see in this picture the stars.  They were so pretty and I saw 2 shooting stars!

The next morning we just got up and headed out since Pat wasn't feeling great.  I didn't sleep well, but the benefit to that was I was up for the sunrise and it was gorgeous!

Oh if I was a painter....

Look at that blue!

Desert morning

They did have this old skool grinder and pour over coffee thing.  Let's just say I did not do that well.  LOL. I basically made jet fuel.

So there it is!  Our hopefully now annual trip out to the desert for Thanksgiving.  Talk about being grateful!  It's so quiet out there.  There is a magic to the desert that people don't realize I think.  I just love it.  Next time we'll try to find a more remote place to stay (Maybe a hot tub!) and bring warmer clothes.  Also def a place with a kitchen.  There's a lot to explore in Joshua Tree that I'm really looking forward to going back and checking out!

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving however you chose to celebrate!

Cheers to making new traditions!