Built around 1900 to hold water for cattle, it now forms an exceptionally small (maybe just for this time of year?) rain-fed reservoir. It is quite a lovely little trail looping through more large boulders, then across flat desert to where there are some Native American petroglyphs.
We spy loads of flitting geckos, Gambel's quails, a loggerhead shrike and a ladder-backed woodpecker along the way!
Feeling spry, we decide to next do the Wall Street Mill mine hike. Not very well marked, we meander down a few dead-end trails before almost calling it and turning back. Keir spies what looks like some kind of rusty building up ahead, so we press on and indeed discover the Wall Street Mill.
It provides an excellent snack stop to muse about how loud it must have been in its working days. This entire area was once owned and worked by the Key's family. It couldn't have been an easy life to work these lands. We find rusted out relics of the bygone era all along the trail.
Only noon and it is meltingly hot. We head out of JT as it's known (Joshua Tree not Justin Timberlake) still marveling at the incredible landscape as we go.
Back in town, we stop at the Crossroads Cafe and Tavern where we load up on our veggies (a "Tie Dye" salad for Jenn and a vegged up grilled cheese sammie and salad for Keir). There is not much in the way of food options around these parts so we may be back for dinner!
So here we are, in the town of Yucca Valley. Squeaky clean and blogging our brains out.
That sounds dirty doesn't it?
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