Friday, December 30, 2005

The Promised Land

This spindly, barren, brownish, dirt laden, dead looking mess is what I'm finally leaving behind after over a month of being in the desert. The Joshua Tree grows like freakin' weeds, especially in the Mojave Desert.

The only good memory I have of this place is when we drove through it as kids on our way to Vegas and we had to stop and take a pee. I can only hope that my little girl urine killed a few of these unfriendly-ugly-no-good-for-climbing-full-of-prickers-sad-excuse-for-a-tree trees. Although, I'm thinking that maybe a little pee made them thrive since there is a whole "forest" of them.

This little fact was taken from the Joshua Tree National Park website: According to legend, Mormon pioneers considered the limbs of the Joshua trees to resemble the upstretched arms of Joshua leading them to the promised land. Others were not as visionary. Early explorer John Fremont described them as "…the most repulsive tree in the vegetable Kingdom."

If the limbs of THAT tree were leading me to the promised land, I'd have to seriously consider if I wanted to continue the journey. I'm with John Fremont. I'd venture to say he was a brilliant man.

In any case, for now, the desert has been left behind and we're heading to the type of weather I like; below 60 degrees, snowy, cold, possible blizzards on the horizon and many many hours of driving by snow covered trees, homes, hills and pastures. Now that is what I would call The Promised Land.

2 comments:

Lisa said...

I absolutely loved the Mojave Desert. I stayed at a friend's ranch a few year's ago deep in the desert and I think that's the last time I felt any kind of peace.

I stopped by via IT2M.

MamaKBear said...

I wondered what those spindly lookin' trees were called! Now I know. :)