Reason #2 to live in California: its National Parks make great Valentine's Day trips. While I'm sure the Sam Houston National Forest is beautiful this time of year, it's hard to beat Joshua Tree. I find something about its stark landscape and vast expanses very appealing.
When we arrived, I had a little Valentine's Day surprise ready for Angie. I set up a little picnic while the sun was setting with bread, cheese, grapes and the wine I bought at the Peju Winery in Napa earlier last year.
The next day, we did the one big hike that Joshua tree has. We hiked up Ryan mountain, which is only about a 3 mile hike up a mountain, but it offered some great views of the park being the highest point in the park.
Apart from that, we mostly just hung out at our campsite, built a fire (with the help of a 10-year-old boy scout from the campsite next to us) and did some non-technical rock climbing on the big rock features that dot Joshua Tree's landscape. Here's some pictures from the rocks that we climbed on our last day before leaving.
Right after we left to go back to LA, we found a little Antique shop. I bought some Life Magazines from 1958 that are pretty entertaining, but we also found time to take some goofy photos:
And to cap off any good California vacation, on the way back we stopped by the ocean for a bit of relaxation.
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