High View Nature Trail and North Entrance Visitor Center, Joshua Tree National Park

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
1/5/2018	1.5 miles + .5 miles				40.4

Map: National Geographic Joshua Tree Map
Guide book: Hiking Joshua Tree National Park, a Falcon Guide
Directions: Hike #38 in guide book, High View Nature Trail

Today, Glen woke up sick. So now we are both sick. My stomach felt a little better though, and he felt some nausea. We decided to try another take it easy day. This was our last day for hiking. We considered taking the tram up San Jacinto, but the tram goes to 8,000' I think, and with both of us not feeling great, I decided it might not be a good idea. We went to Crossroads Café for breakfast again. Then we went to the same area we were hiking in yesterday, because we figured we could do the short nature trail that starts from that parking area. We did a slow hike, taking it easy still.

After our short hike, we headed to the West Entrance Visitor Center. We figured we could spend some time there learning about the park. When we arrived, there was a roadrunner right outside the visitor center. This made our day! We took photos. The visitor center had a small garden area with plants identified, which was helpful for us to put names to some of the plants we've been seeing for the last few days. We then went on a .5 mile nature walk on the grounds of the visitor center. It passes by an oasis - which, well, used to be a real oasis, but now is artificially created (i.e. water is put there). The oasis attracted a bunch of wildlife though, which made it interesting. We saw more bunnies, and many, many quail. The walk itself was less interesting. We returned to the visitor center and went inside to read about the animals (my interest), the rocks (Glen's interest), and plants. It was definitely a worthwhile stop.

Next up....Barker Dam.