We started a tradition on this campout.  I purchased a National Park Passport for my daughter and we started getting it stamped.  This was the first National Park Service area in which she had camped.  Black Rock Canyon Campground is the only campground in Joshua Tree that has running water where you can camp among joshua trees.  The campsite we had here was a great site.  Big, level and secluded are the optimum words for it.  We could have pitched the tent in several different areas.  We had a Kangaroo Rat hopping around our feet around the campfire that night.

This was the first camping trip for my middle child.  He is a great camper, but it was touch and go for a little bit on this particular trip.  Falling into a cactus will cause you to not want to go camping again.  As you can see, the campsite was not nearly as secluded as our first site the previous year. 

We camped with some friends here.  You can generally have two families in one campsite in National parks.  Ask first, but that's what we did here.  With the overhanging tamarisk trees on our western side, we had great shade all day long.  Not much of a view from this particular site, but it was a very pleasant campsite.  It also is 196 feet below sea level.

This is the same site as we had on our first trip.  In fact, the tent is pitched in the exact same place.  Once again, we camped with friends and both were in the same campsite.  Saved us some money and it's great to have some friends with you when you're camping.  I forgot to mention above, but about the only drawback to this particular campsite is you can see the town lights of Joshua Tree, California.  It's pretty, but not what you really want to look at when you're out communing with nature.

This particular campsite is great if you're camping in a RV of some sort.  Every site is a pull through cement slab designed for trailers, 5th wheels and motorhomes.  The spaces that would accommodate a tent were few and far between.  Very few sites have any kind of shade.  Ours had late, late afternoon shade, but what was actually needed was some mid-morning to  early afternoon shade for the heat of the day.  In the winter time, it wouldn't be bad, but we went in the middle of springtime and temperatures were just starting to heat up.  If you camp in a tent here, ask for site 109, as it is fairly large to accommodate a tent.