I keep getting stuck on this: No one would go camping anywhere in this area in late July, particularly this year, but also truly any year. Sometimes I sleep outside (in JT) if there is a notable summer meteor shower or whatever. By 7:30am in the summer the sun is so intense I can't sleep or be outside and have to retreat indoors.
Joshua Tree National Park has blown up in popularity in recent years, and in "high season" (fall to spring) it is hard to get campgrounds. In the summer it is so hot that my friends and I sometimes will go "camp" because the National Park is so empty, so it is easy to get the good spots and no one is around. When we summer "camp" in the park, we show up around sunset, set up, cook over fire, hang out under stars, sleep, wake up, have coffee together, and then go home by 8am-ish as it's too hot to stay there.
Also JF shared absolutely no photos that showed camping anywhere. It's also notably weird that she shared no photos of any of the popular and wildly beautiful parts of Joshua Tree National Park. When you drive in through the JT entrance, which most people do, in part because of the beauty, it is like entering into another planet. So strange and gorgeous. But she shows no images anywhere discernable in the actual national park. (The mine area photographed on the 21st is in 29, mostly outside of the park official boundaries.) In particular, visitors to the Park tend to be in awe of, and photograph, the unique rock formations.
This is a video I found that shows the drive in from the JT entrance, to show the difference between the Park, and the unique rock formations, and what was captured in JF's photos. (Maybe if you don't know the area, you can't tell the difference. But the rock formations in the Park are larger, redder, rocks in strange formations. Not like anything seen in the photos JF shared.)
I also went back to the google drive of JF's photos and videos today. It is clear by the images and videos she sent that her first day they did drive down the 62 to the 10 out towards Thermal. This makes no sense to do with a visitor who wants to see the beauty of the desert. There must have been some non-desert tourist reason they went that way on her first day out here.
Perhaps when JF said "camp," she meant something other than going to a campgrounds, setting up a tent, or otherwise sleeping out under the stars. But it strikes me as odd that her final text talked about preparing to camp, on July 21st, when it was notably over 100 degrees, and any actual camping would require you leave for shelter by 8am, and she has shared no signs of actually camping in Joshua Tree, which would be the "coolest" (temp wise) place to camp out of all possible options in the area.