Joshua Tree National Park
I’ve already expounded on the joys of taking this road trip with four other bossladies and shared some of the portraits that we made out in the desert, but here’s a better look into what we did the rest of the trip. Here are some of the many orchards of central California.
My go-to California road trip stop: In-N-Out!
Golden hills.
And then we somehow found a legit Taiwanese restaurant in Barstow! It’s strategically located next to some outlet malls. Yum!
We arrived to our home in the desert around 9pm that night, and I was awoken by the sunrise the next morning!
Our pretty house!
And here we are running around the kitchen prepping breakfast and lunch to bring with us.
Brianne calligraphed our sandwiches.
Workation in action.
Our first hike out into the park! It was extremely windy that day, with 40mph winds, so we definitely didn’t do as much outdoor time as we thought. But most of the hikes in this park are only about a mile anyway.
Bootie rocks!
I placed number one! In what, I’m not sure.
We were a bit anxious about this visit to the cholla cactus garden, since the park ranger told us that the wind would pick up the little cactus balls and they would fly around and impale us. These cacti look cute and fuzzy, but their spines are no joke and are very painful to remove, even if you just accidentally back into one. And they are also called jumping cactus, because the ends of their limbs break off into the little cactus balls as their mode of propogation.
Hello, innocent-looking cactus ball. Well, I’m glad to report that we did not witness cacti flying around in the air, and none of us was impaled.
That evening, we got all dressed up and headed back out to the park for our band photos! See the portrait post for the other photos we took at this session.
Such a beautiful sunset.
Dinner back at the house- Cassie fed us this delicious coconut rice & ground beef with string beans!
And sunrise number two! One more hike. We were hoping to head to the dam and see some bighorn sheep this morning, but the biggest animal we saw was a little rabbit.
Then we visited the art installations of sculptor Noah Purifoy. But first, we had to get out of our minivan and help this little old lady who oversees the exhibit, because her pickup truck got stuck in the sand. Ladies to the rescue!
And finally, one more band photo back at the house.
Do-Hee made us her delicious shrimp tacos! We ate really well on this whole trip.
Post-hot tub time.
And then we headed back through LA and drove back up to the Bay!
Thank you so much for this wonderful experience. I had the best time with you ladies.
Anna Wu is a wedding and portrait photographer based in San Francisco. She creates beautiful, soft, and timeless imagery while capturing the most fleeting of moments. View her work at annawu.com, follow her daily adventures on instagram, and contact her to book your own session today.
