Joshua Tree Oasis: Get Wanderfully Lost.

It’s that time of year again.  Time to celebrate my anniversary with my hubby!  We get to travel out of the country, and stay in hotels for most of our trips so I always try to plan something “different” to celebrate this with him.  It was going to be difficult to compete with last year’s anniversary trip to Havasupai .  This year I decided on Joshua Tree.  Joshua Tree is located in Southern California, and is where the Mojave and Colorado deserts meet.  The desert setting is gorgeous!  Joshua Tree is well known for camping, music festivals, and getting in touch with one’s “real” self.  For this trip, I wanted to sit back and relax and enjoy the pretty scenery.  I wanted to hole up…have a staycation!  I always plan our trips with my husband’s opinion in mind.  I know what he likes and doesn’t.  For the most part though, my husband goes with the flow of whatever I choose.  His mama didn’t raise no fool!

I turned to VRBO and Airbnb to look for the perfect place and stumbled upon Joshua Tree Oasis.  It looked perfect in the photos.  It was a bit higher than I wanted to spend, but we weren’t going to be going out and spending any money on wining and dining.  We were going to hole up and cook at home.  Taking that into consideration, it definitely penciled out, and we were able to splurge a bit on the accommodations.  This has turned out to be my favorite VRBO/Airbnb yet.  I loved it so much that I wrote a blog on it!

Joshua Tree was about a 10 hour drive from our house.  We stocked up on very gourmet goods to cook our meals, including all the ingredients to make some amazing cocktails.  We also picked up a ton of wood for the outdoor fire pit on the property.  It felt like we were going camping.  We pulled up to our private gate, and entered the property.  It was so much more than I expected!  The house was decorated to the nines.  We had views from every room, the kitchen was well stocked, we had a bumping sound system that went through the entire property, and the best part was there was not another soul in site.  We literally had this huge slice of earth all to ourselves (except for the coyotes who kept photobombing me).  We had complete privacy for the next five days.  It was perfect for an anniversary trip!  This place was a two bed/two bath with an in law unit with another bed/bath.  We loved it to enjoy as a couple, but you could fit a large family or three couples perfectly.

The first morning we woke up with bacon jalapeño bloody mary’s in hand, and jumped right in the hot tub (bathing suits optional).  We spent the day doing all there was to do on the property.  Hot tub, cowboy tub (which was very refreshing), horse shoes, more eating and drinking, bbqing, napping, repeat, and finished the night off with a gourmet meal and a campfire.

This property is also located about five minutes from the Joshua Tree National Park entrance.  On the second day we explored the park, saw all the sites there were to see, scouted our favorite campground for the next trip, and hiked the day away.  Cholla Cactus Garden and Skull Rock were fun, and perfect photo ops.  The park is huge, and there is so much to explore!

There isn’t much to the actual “town” of Joshua Tree.  This property is just a short five minute drive down the hill to the town, but there really isn’t much to see.  We did stumble on a fun saloon called Joshua Tree Saloon (of all unique names).  It was super fun!  They had live music, karaoke, pool, darts, and a beer garden.  Being the incredibly brilliant young lady that I am, I wore the highest heels I own to enjoy this beer garden.  Always trying to look my cutest for my man!  Well, I then returned home to my desert property only to walk through a cactus garden in those five inch heels.  Low and behold, I ate it hard, and took a fall straight into a cactus (hands first).  No matter how much I enjoyed that beer garden, it couldn’t numb me enough for the pain of diving hands first into a cactus.  That ish hurt!  My husband had to sit me down and pull out the needles, one by one.  I may have shed a tear or two…and maybe had a shot of tequila or two.  Maybe.  I actually had needles deep in my hand for over a month after this trip.  Very wise advise to share with you guys…don’t wear your high heels to enjoy a beer garden and follow it up with a walk through a cactus garden.  Cactus 1, Jessica 0.  I still love the desert though!