Joshua Tree National Park

We went into Joshua Tree, the town, to have lunch as the Crossroads Cafe, a restaurant noted for good food and a funky atmosphere.  The cafe met expectations.  Joshua Tree would be a dreary little desert town but has enough small  businesses to make it interesting.

After lunch we were on our way into the National Park for a tour of the Keys Ranch.  There is a longer story here  but simply put the Keys Ranch was the homestead of a man and woman and their kids who lived in a spectacular but isolated setting deep in what is now the Joshua Tree National Forest.  They raised a family there, farmed there, mined there, died there, and are buried there. 

Ann fairly hummed with delight at all the rust (old mining equipment, old cars and trucks, bed springs, etc.) that we saw at the ranch.  Ann collects rusty things and works them into art pieces.  We were told going in that it was a museum and that we were not to touch anything, not to take anything away.  If there wasn’t a locked gate a mile away from the entrance to the ranch we would go back with the truck and load up.