Back in 2016 we visited Joshua Tree National Park for a day. It’s another world, a prehistoric one and no part of it is more prehistoric-looking than its Jumbo Rocks Campground, you literally expect to see Fred Flintstone emerge from around the rocks. We vowed to someday camp there.

So in spring 2019 we headed there with our trailer with a two-night reservation for the Jumbo Rocks Campground, the thing about this campground is that it has no water or electricity for campers. Our trailer has fresh, grey and black water tanks and a single battery for camping without hookups. We figured we‘d last the two nights.

We climbed the jumbo rocks, sat in our private courtyard for dinner, and hiked to the Wall Street Mill that processed gold beginning in the late 1800s.

At the end of two days, we didn’t want to leave Joshua Tree so we moved to another campground in the park for another night, adding water and charging the trailer’s battery a bit while we drove there. We knew we were pushing it with the battery, and sure enough we were out of electricity when we woke up after night three. So it was time to leave Joshua Tree. We never did see Fred.