Best Day Thus Far

I would say "best day ever" but it doesn't really seem fair since I don't know what the future holds, however, this has been our best day thus far while living out here and it comes pretty close to our best day thus far in our marriage...it makes the top 10, at least :)

Today jake and I discovered something here in the desert that we truly enjoy. Joshua Tree National Park. This humongous park is literally in our back yard. I wasn't sure how I would feel about it because it is so darn hot out here but after some talk we decided that we would give it a try this weekend. I think that I have become some what accustom to the heat, for sure enough to enjoy a day outside as long as I kept hydrated.

So, we woke up, got ready at our leisure, packed our lunches and then headed to the park. We talked about it and decided to invest in a year long pass since a one day pass was $15 and a year long pass was only $30. (I was certain we would use it at least twice in the next year but now I'm certain I'll be using it at least twice a month over the next year.) We got a map and just started to explore.

The first place we went was mountain climbing! Now don't jump to the conclusion that we were hanging from ropes with harnesses climbing up a vertical mountain wall - because were weren't. This was more like finding a mountain of boulders and finding our way to the top. We had to be careful because there are quite a few dangerous aspects to wildlife out here and luck for us we didn't come across any (that we know of). I was nervous at first but the fun aspect very quickly surpassed the nerves and I loved it! Jake, of course, has done training which includes climbing like this and knew he enjoyed it and we extremely happy to find out that I enjoyed it too! And it is much bigger than it looks :)

Second, we went to this group of boulders called "skull rock" and it seriously looks like a skull! Can you see it?

We climbed around there for a while as well but because it was about 103 we decided to move on to our last stop....

Barker damn - it was used during the mining days and we had heard that there had been quite a few reports of people seeing big horned sheep. Lucky for us, we did!! Jake was sort of scared at first because they really were not that far away and 3 of them had gigantic horns and looked more like rams then sheep. I say there were 3 because they kept fighting and knocking heads trying to become the "king of the mountain"... literally. Every time the knocked heads it sounded like a gun shot! It was so exciting though!

I am so glad that I was able to find something that I really enjoy out here in the middle of no where and I am even more happy that it is something jake and I can do together. Thank you God for the blessing I have and those I have yet to discover.