Joshua Tree - Twentynine Palms

For most Californian’s with a national park pass, they drive directly into Joshua Tree and either spend their whole day exploring before heading home at night, or they camp and stay inside the national park until they head home.

Nobody really stops by in the outside city of Twentynine Palms. Gas is expensive and so is the food. On top of that, the city closes really early. Everything shuts down by 8pm.

I was in the city for 3 days and I think I was just as equally impressed as the times that I went inside into Joshua Tree.

Coming into the town right before sunset was gorgeous. The city seems to be dimly lit over all so you can see all the colors of the sunset with minimal  light pollution. It’s stunning.

I arrived to the house and unloaded everything really fast so I could start taking photos as much as I could. The purple and pink colors from the sunset bathed everything with a dark color pallet and that gave it an ethereal feel. Everything was so beautiful.

At night, the stars littered the skies, even while the moon was out. It felt as if you could reach out and touch the stars.

During the day, the sun is bright but not burning like I’d come to expect from Nevada and other dessert areas. It gave everything a warm orange glow, kind of like what the sun does during the sunset, but not as extreme.

Pioneer town is east of the city. It’s close to Morongo Valley as well, so it’s a popular place for people to go visit. It’s a city that was rebuilt for Hollywood. It has that old western feel but still feels too clean for it to look as old as it does.

There's lots of things to see here. It’s worth the detour to see it.

At night I explored the edge of Twentynine Pines. There was a few abandoned houses that you had to drive through dirt roads to get to. It was fun exploring these places late at night.

Even though Twentynine Pine’s isn’t the main attraction, since it’s right next to Joshua Tree, it’s definitely a cool city to explore.