My husband and took a quick trip to California. We flew on Hawaiian Airlines into Ontario Airport and stayed at the Sheraton Ontario Airport Hotel. The Ontario Airport experience was excellent. The airport is small enough to make navigating the terminal very convenient. But at the same time, large enough to have amenities like a nice airport lounge. We easily got our rental car and found our way to the Sheraton Ontario Airport Hotel. We checked in and then got some eats from In-N-Out, which was located right across the hotel. We had a room with club access. This meant that despite the late hour, we had access to bottled water and soft drinks as a perk.

The club access also included breakfast. In the morning, I got a hot breakfast at the club lounge and a few bottles of water. We left the Ontario area and headed to Joshua Tree National Park. We drove past Coachella, where my son had just spent some time recently during their music festival. This was a last-minute trip, so I didn’t do any research about the park. We entered the park from the Cottonwood entrance. This was a great driving route for us. We chatted with the park rangers at the Cottonwood Visitor Center and got their suggestions on stops to make. We first stopped at Cholla (pronounced choya) Cactus Garden. What a cool garden with thousands of cacti. Perhaps other times of the year are better but the month of May was perfect for us. The weather was not too hot or too cold and we were very comfortable.

The park wasn’t busy, and there weren’t too many cars. It was very easy to find parking at each of the stops we made. After Cholla Cactus Garden, we stopped at Skull Rock, which is exactly as it sounds. A rock that looks like a skull. We waited in line to take a selfie with this cool rock. There are lots of rock formations in the park. If you use your imagination, you’ll see all kinds of things. We finally found out what a Joshua Tree is–a yucca with clusters of spiky leaves. We saw roadrunners along the way. They were much smaller than I was imagining. Not like the cartoon Road Runner who seemed to be as big as Wile E. Coyote.

If we had more time, I would plan on taking a couple of hikes. I would bring picnic food to sit and enjoy the beautiful weather and scenery. If I’m near the park, I would definitely go back and spend more time.

On our way back to Ontario, we noticed the Cabazon Dinosaur roadside attraction and stopped there for some photos. How fun! We also made time to stop at Trader Joe’s in Redlands. We found lots of snacks but no mini totes! Living Hilo Style in Joshua Tree National Park.