Joshua Tree National Park

We decided to stop at the Joshua Tree National Park on our way from Indio to Phoenix. We'd heard of the Joshua tree and finally had one identified for us while we were at the Living Desert. We had to drive a couple of miles into the park before we found our first Joshua tree and even then they were quite small. By the time we got to the actual welcome center we were able to locate some larger ones. Since admission was $15 and we really wanted to get back on the road to get to Phoenix before rush hour, we turned around and left. We'd seen our Joshua trees and taken a few pictures. We were guessing the rest was probably just more of the same. We were glad that we stopped for that brief detour. It wasn't long before we came upon a pretty bad accident scene involving a semi. Had we not stopped, who knows...

Ok, so I just looked up the Joshua Tree on Wikipedia, and it looks like the "Joshua Trees" we thought we'd found are not actually Joshua Trees. Apparently in the 2 1/2 days that passed between our trip to the Living Desert and the Joshua Tree National Park, we forgot what a Joshua Tree actually looked like. Apparently we should have paid the $15 and driven a little further!