Joshua Tree
I’m going camping this weekend at Joshua Tree National Park. I have never been, so I am really looking forward to it! (I’ve done some cooking in preparation, which will be the topic of my next two posts!)
Here are some random facts about Joshua Tree:
The rock formations of Joshua Tree National Park were formed 100 million years ago from the cooling of magma beneath the surface.
Humans have occupied the area around the park for over 5,000 years.
Known as the park namesake, the Joshua tree, Yucca brevifolia, is a giant member of the lily family.
The band U2 named their fifth album after the park, as a nod to both the wide-open spaces of America that produced the county and blues music they borrow liberally from, and their antipathy towards American foreign policy, a prevalent theme underlying many of the tracks on the album.
I think it is kind of cool to give a tree a human name, but the story of how the Joshua Tree came to be called Joshua is surprisingly unexciting, and actually a little lame. From the National Park website: According to legend, Mormon pioneers considered the limbs of the Joshua trees to resemble the upstretched arms of Joshua leading them to the promised land.
On the other hand, I do like the story of how the local town of Twentynine Palms was named: Legend holds that the Serrano Indians came to the Oasis of Mara because a medicine man told them it was a good place to live and that they would have many boy babies. The medicine man instructed them to plant a palm tree each time a boy was born. In the first year, the Serrano planted 29 palm trees at the oasis.