Perseid Meteor Shower at Joshua Tree Natl. Park

I'm generally not a spur-of-the-moment kind of gal. However, yesterday at about 4pm I saw on the internet that the peak of the annual Perseid meteor was going to be from 1-2am that night (or next morning). I thought of how I had always wanted to take the boys out to the desert to watch them but never did because I didn't want to deal with the crying because it was past bedtime. But wait. The boys are older now. So, we went.
All we packed is the stuff for sleeping, a couple folding chairs, and cold cereal and milk for breakfast. In 2 hours and 20 minutes we were in Joshua Tree National Forest fighting for a camping space with all 5 other people in the park (summer is not high season for this national park). The nighttime air temp was in the mid 70s and it was as quiet as you can get without silencing a few desert bugs and what we figured had to be the shriek of an owl. The meteor shower was lovely (no pictures to show for it) and very worth the trip.
Here is our campsite in the Cottonwood Springs Campground, just about 8 miles from I-10, but in the middle of nowhere.

Nathaniel was ready to explore in the morning.

We drove through the park and stopped to explore where the rock "extrusions" are (this was magma that squeezed up under some other rock into these shapes and cooled) near the "White Tank Campground.

Chris and the boys hiked up under Arch Rock.

Chris did his best Atlas impression...

and Nathaniel did his. Then we saw a small hollow high in a rock. I said that'd be a good picture but Chris thought it was too steep. We didn't realize that Davis decided that he was going to climb up there until he appeared walking across the ledge below it (already many feet over our heads).

He found a seam in the rock with a good hand hold.

A closer look shows some good foot holds.

A daring reach...

and then there he was up in the hollow of the rock.

You can see the moon in the sky to the right of the rock cleft. Sorry, no actual pictures of Joshua Trees or Meteors. I guess the title of this post is a bit misleading.