Dream Trip 2009

Great Travel Moment

I recently took a monthlong road trip from Miami to L.A. and back. My brother, pictured here, joined me on one leg of this adventure to visit Joshua Tree National Park, a place we both knew little about. Although our original intention was to see where Gram Parsons had spent his last hours, we left entranced by the spectacular beauty of this park. The trees, now threatened by climate change, still make funny shapes against the extraterrestrial, rocky backdrop. Here we found petroglyphs left by ancient desert dwellers, probably the Cahuilla Indians. As you can see, some of them are painted brightly. These colors are actually graffiti left behind by modern visitors who defaced the carved images, once so sacred to the original artists. Either way, this place remained sacred and we felt like children as we climbed through the earth's odd formations, filled with awe.