Dawn at Joshua Tree

So we decided to make it to Joshua Tree National Park for dawn...originally we wanted to camp out at the park overnight and wake up at dawn--all in the name of nice pictures--we figured we couldn't make it in that time.

So we left at 3:30 am. We went to be the previous night around 9, woke up early nd ready to go. I drove from Long Beach along the 710 to the 91 to Artesia and off to Riverside, then transferred to the 60 to meet up with the 60, and then off to the 10, to our exit, the southern entrance to Joshua Tree Park.

We got there as daybreak gave way to dawn. The air was still and quiet. The black gave way to indigo; the indigo gave way to blue as orange pushed away the indigo.



The air was quiet--silent, really, absolutely quiet. The birds were still asleep. The wind hadn't even started yet.

Quickly the birds woke up, and our silence was shattered with the songs of modern dinosaurs. The mountains facing the sunrise radiated a soft, pink glow.



Afterwards we went over to a parking lot on the park's grounds and took a bunch of pictures.I had both my Canon point and shoot camera as well as Corrie's Pentax Super Program 35mm SLR, while Corrie shot her Nikon D7000 DSLR camera.

Here are some extra pictures:





After it was said and done, we went to breakfast to 1) eat something; and 2) let the sun get a little farther up into the sky.

We made it to Scottsdale a little later.