This is a Joshua tree lit by the setting sun at Joshua Tree National Park. I have to confess that Joshua trees don't do much for me, and I've never been entirely clear on why a thousand square miles of scrub and Joshua trees became a national park. But I'm sure it has a unique and fragile ecosystem etc. etc.
"I've never been entirely clear on why a thousand square miles of scrub and Joshua trees became a national park."
The place was designated a National Monument in 1936. It became a National Park in 1994, just seven years after U2 released a particular album that sold 25M copies.
The Wikipedia article on that album, The Joshua Tree, is long and interesting, and it's very well researched, with extensive citations of original sources. Of particular interest in this context is the subsection titled Packaging and Title. A lot of detail I never knew until now.
There's a hotel in the town of Joshua Tree where U2 stayed in the mid-80's. They have a picture of the band - in that very hotel, looking quite young - on the wall behind the desk.
You realize they're some of the oldest living things on the planet? Some hundreds of years old and one (or more?) over thousand years old.
Not as impressive as a Giant Sequoia, but not much is.
Largest Spruce in Oregon was pretty impressive.
But the really old planta in the arid hills are just amazing in their tenacity and irreplaceability.
That thing you're worried about (preserving wild ecosystems)? It's kind of an annoyance to Kevin Drum, a medium-sized deal in that he'd prefer to not have to deal with it.
Because some of us🤚camped out in the open in Joshua Tree Monument in the early 90s then wrote ✍️ postcards to push for it to become a national park, and a couple of years later, voila. Also, U2 might have had a strong influence.
Lovely rock formations out there. If you're (un)lucky, you might find my buried "treasure" between rocks and bushes.
Joshua Tree is a beautiful area and well deserving of national park status.
Dark skies. Very dark skies. Isn't that good enough, Mr. Astrophotographer?
It was changed from a national monument to a national park by the Desert Protection Act of 1994. So yes. It is a fragile ecosystem without a lot of human activity in it that happens to have a lot of Joshua trees. It is also under serious threat from climate change.
♪♪ ... where the streets have no name... ♪♪