After geeking out at the Space Shuttle Endeavour Exhibit in Los Angeles, we headed over to Joshua Tree National Park (a 3 hour drive), nestled in the Mojave Desert region of Southern California. As the name suggests, this park is all about the trees - specifically, the surreal and spiky Joshua trees. While these oddball yuccas can be spotted across wide swaths of the desert in California and Nevada, the park offers a dense, protected habitat where they truly dominate the landscape.
We had a great time photographing them in all their quirky, contorted shapes. But as we wandered deeper into the park, I was struck by a strange sense of déjà vu - something about the terrain felt oddly familiar. Then it hit me: this was the backdrop I had seen countless times in the 1950s science fiction movies I grew up watching in the 1960s. Despite their campy plots and rubber-suited monsters, those films sparked my early fascination with space, astronomy, and - somehow - the desert.
Who would've thought those over-the-top creature features would cultivate a real-world appreciation for dry, windswept landscapes? But they did, and here I am. No film epitomizes that era more than Them! (1954), a sci-fi horror classic about giant, irradiated ants threatening to overrun civilization. Though set in New Mexico, it was actually filmed in the Mojave Desert of California. I suppose the filmmakers figured, if you’ve seen one desert, you’ve seen them all. (I can’t believe I just typed that - but truth be told, I probably felt that way back then.)
That nostalgic connection to vintage sci-fi made exploring Joshua Tree even more special for me - like stepping into a favorite scene from my childhood imagination. Rhonda humored my enthusiasm, though I suspect she quietly resolved to limit my TV time once we got home.
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| Cholla Cactus |
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| Sphinx Moth Caterpillar |
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| Cholla Cactus |
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| Hedgehog Cactus |
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| Ocotillo Cactus |
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| Rhonda and an Ocotillo Cactus. |
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Cysteodemus armatus
(That's the best I could find on the internet. I think it's some kind of spider beetle.) |
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| Them! ....errr ...Us!!! |
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