This year Patrick and I decided to take our summer holiday in April and go to Sedona, AZ. Unfortunately, Patrick’s job didn’t permit this, so the earliest we could get away was mid-May - which would put the temps in Sedona at around 110°F (43°C) which we didn't think would be ideal for camping/hiking/biking.

I’ve always wanted to go to Joshua Tree and calculated that we could manage to squeeze in a quick visit over a long weekend (which is all we thought we'd get to begin with). In the event, we actually ended up with 10 days thanks to the Memorial Day Bank Holiday, so it gave us plenty of time to travel the way we tend to travel... slowly. Of course temperatures in Joshua Tree, being slap in the middle of the Mojave Desert, weren’t going to be great either, but at least we could more or less guarantee that it wouldn't be raining (which is all it had been doing for the last month at home - we had the wettest April in 20 years). 

15-23 May 2003