A new mural illustrating the living creatures that occupied the area in and around Joshua Tree National Park in California thousands of years ago is now on exhibit in the Joshua Tree Visitor Center. The mural offers a glimpse of how climate change, through time, can alter the landscape and life within.

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, an art exhibit at the United States Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C., will showcase some of the plant species and communities found throughout the more than 400 national parks.

Visiting a national park this year offers you the opportunity to get directly involved with the National Park Service Centennial. At Joshua Tree National Park in California you can do that by taking part in the Centennial Hiking Challenge.

We recently returned to southern California’s Joshua Tree National Park for a third time. The previous visits took place a number of years ago and were rushed affairs when we were headed for other destinations. In each case we made a short stop at the park’s Oasis Visitor Center just outside the town of Twenty Nine Palms and drove south through the park to Interstate 10 without another stop of any consequence. Mostly, we were there to see the unusual trees (actually, they aren’t trees) that serve as the park’s namesake with little time for exploration. Unfortunately, we missed the largest concentration of trees and failed to appreciate much of what Joshua Tree National Park has to offer. That was our loss.