Welcome to the third and last installment of my adventures in Joshua Tree park. I had a great time exploring the upper desert and looking at all the crazy rock formations.

While you are in the desert, you have to be careful where you step. There are dangerous plants and animals. Like very prickly cactus…

or fire ants. These are really big ants and they bite hard! 

I was careful to avoid both at the same time. The ants were munching on the cactus.

Everything was in bloom from the Joshua Tree and it’s flowers…

to all the wildflowers in the lower desert. I sniffed a bunch of them….yellow flowers…

and purple flowers.

We walked along a rainy river bed which ran by the road. It only becomes a river when it rains, which isn’t very often but when it does, it is a lot of water at once. Never walk in a rainy river if you think it’s going to rain because they are prone to flash flooding. We were very safe because there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

Many of the flowers and other plants grow in the rainy rivers because they stay moist longer. This very tall (about 10′) plant is called an Ocotillo plant. It looks a little like a cactus but it’s actually a shrub. It only has leaves when there is enough moisture for them to grow. It will also grow red blossoms at the very tips at the same time.

We had a wonderful time at Joshua Tree park. At sunset we packed up and headed off to nearby Palm Springs for dinner.

It was very busy downtown in Palm Springs but we finally found an Italian restaurant to dine at…it started with a K. They were not very dog friendly but they did let me sit beside the humans OUTSIDE the patio railing. I had some grilled salmon and a few little bowtie pasta…it was ok because I was hungry but I’ve had much better! I was so tired: I slept all the way on the drive back home.