Joshua Tree National Park & Los Angeles

After our time at the beach, we headed across Los Angeles with Emmie and stopped in Anaheim for the next 5 days. This part of the trip, we welcomed Gigi and Pops! Gigi's loves Disneyland and when we planned this part of the trip, we asked if they wanted to meet us in LA for a few days of fun! Once we set up camp, our first destination was Joshua Tree National Park.... in 105 degree temperature... sounds fantastic, doesn't it? Haha

Trip Details:

Where: Joshua Tree National Park, CA and Los Angeles area

Campsite: Anaheim Harbor RV Park, site 114-115 (great campground)

Length: 5 days

Itinerary:

Day 1: Joshua Tree National Park

Day 2: Disneyland

Day 3: Universal Studios

Day 4; Relax Day/Pool

Day 5: San Diego Zoo

Charlotte’s Highlights: Seeing the desert since it looked completely different than what we live in

Paige’s Highlights: Seeing the Joshua Trees

Adult’s Highlights: Enjoying a drive though park, and the vista at Key's View

Once we got to Joshua Tree National Park, we were thankful to hear that this was a drive though national park. We spent a couple hours in the park, checking out the landscape, stopping here and there to see the scenic vistas and arid landscapes. Our two main stops were at Key's View for a gorgeous vista of San Bernardino Mountains and Cholla Cactus Gardens which was a valley full of small cacti. We learned that if we went off the path in the garden, that these Cholla cactus like to "jump" or hitch a ride by attaching themselves to animals or maybe even people to help spread their seeds. The Joshua Tree's are unique looking, and mostly made up of a trunk. Native wildlife in this area would be tarantulas, snakes, scorpions, bees, lizards, kangaroo rats, bats and big-horn sheep. Needless to say, we stayed on the paths and didn't venture far!

The next day we got up before the sun and headed to Disneyland! Big shout out and thank you to our dear friend, Michelle Mathews from Pixie Planners, for providing us some excellent tips, tricks and itinerary to help us navigate around Disneyland! We ended up rope dropping the Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance ride. Then we just Genie+/Lightning Lane/Fast Passed all the rest of the rides. Paige's favorite ride was Big Thunder Mountain and Charlotte's was Splash Mountain - probably because her sister got completely soaked!! Haha! We rode every ride and didn't have to wait long at all.

We stayed until the end of the night and enjoyed watching the 50th anniversary Main Street Electrical Parade and fireworks show. We had a blast and it was a great visit!

The next day was Universal Studios Hollywood! We got a bit of a late start thanks to Disney, but had a great time at Universal! Unlike Disney, we opted not to upgrade our tickets to skip the line because it would be an extra $125/person!! We didn't get to ride as many rides because of this choice, but hey, between the 6 of us we saved $750, so we're good. We enjoyed hanging out at Hogsmeade in Harry Potter World, drank some Butterbeer (aka cream soda) and shopped at Ollivanders, the wand store. The girl's favorite ride was Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, so much so they rode it twice! This ride takes place inside Hogwarts Castle!

The adult's favorite attraction was a tie between the Universal Studios tour (which was a great 1-hour long SITTING ride) and the attraction, WaterWorld, which was a live-action theater production based off the Kevin Costner movie! This production had water (obviously), water crafts, fire, aerobatics, an actor fell off of a 50-foot building and a surprise plane crash! We felt like we were in a movie.

We had a little bit of shopping fun before heading out to grab a bite to eat at Joe's Crab Shack!

The third day was a relaxing day, eating at the camper, playing Minecraft and getting a little pool time in! No pictures... it wasn't that exciting which is right up our alley. That evening after dinner, we said goodbye to Giigi and Pops to continue on our journey!

The last day, we headed to San Diego to go to the zoo! The San Diego Zoo was a great treat! We loved how close all the exhibits were and they had many opportunities for transportation around the zoo (sky safari ride, trams, double decker bus tour) and a lot of the park was shaded! We learned that the zoo grows a lot of it's animal food on the zoo's 100 acres! We got to see lots of animals of course, but my favorite was probably the Galapagos Turtles!

As we headed back to Anaheim, we stopped at Golden Road Brewery for some beer and appetizers! That night, we enjoyed watching yet another night of fireworks courtesy of Disneyland! Our RV campground was literally across the street from Disney, so although we only went to Disney 1 day, we enjoyed the fireworks each night!

We had a great visit in Southern California and we're excited for our next adventure as we said goodbye to California and headed to Utah! Thanks for coming on our adventure! Until next time….

~ Mary