3/20/19: high desert

So I’ve got my stupid little $7.99 flashlight I picked up at the 7-11 on Kickapoo Drive tucked under my chin but I’m wearing a balaclava so the metal handle is slipping against the wool and the beam of light is flying around like I’m at a disco instead of hunched over in a tent trying to duct-tape myself into my sleeping bag. The main issue here, of course, is that I am stubborn: when the zipper broke on this sleeping bag I was immediately certain I could fix it, but it turns out I couldn’t, and so instead of taking it to the zipper repair guy across the street from my apartment, I put it back in the closet and figured I’d take another run at it…later.

“Later,” alas, never came around before I made a game-time decision to take my tent and etc. out to California and so Plan B was, as it so often is, duct tape. In the end, the duct tape solution mostly worked, which is excellent news as the high desert delivered weather as advertised: warm during the day and then whoa nellie cold at night. Camping is probably not the best idea for business travel, but this isn’t really a business trip, it’s more like a personal trip during which I continue doing some consulting work, which is how everyone in the Joshua Tree Black Rock Canyon campground got to hear “Dixieland Delight” at 5 am local time. Haha, sorry?

This is my first time in…a hundred years, maybe?...camping with a car instead of a motorcycle, and boy howdy did I forget how EASY camping can be! I love putting some gear on the back of the bike and heading out, but doing so involves a LOT of planning and thinking and negotiating space that is completely obviated by having a car (ever tried to transport firewood via motorcycle?). For example, this morning I woke up and it was super cold and so I pulled up stakes (get it?!), collapsed the tent poles, folded up the tent with sleeping bag and mattress pad still inside, and shoved the whole mess into the trunk. I was headed down to the Starbucks in Yucca Valley in less than 8 minutes, which is key since somebody was surely getting pissed about the “Dixieland Delight” situation. (I snoozed a couple of times, I’M SORRY. It was just SO. COLD. that I needed a few more minutes in the warm embrace of my duct-taped-shut sleeping bag.)

I made Joshua Tree just about sunset on Tuesday night and the moon was one day away full that I could have gotten away without having that dumb 7-11 flashlight. Like, it was SUPER light out—didn’t even need the flashlight to make my way to the tooth-brushing/pee place which was perfectly clean but had a sign warning us ladies not to let any snakes in with us. Noted! 

Seriously, this is the MOON (and a wee campfire below it!): 

Renting a motorcycle for this trip would have been impractical for a variety of reasons, though of course I still wish I had one and the CONSTANT sight of them (legally!) lane-splitting is driving me mad with jealousy, but having a car is still a source of constant delight. On my way down the mountain this morning I had the radio on scan, as I am old enough to remember when you couldn’t always bring your own music but instead just ran up and down the dial until you hit something you liked. I’m not always a fan of deliberately putting happiness out of my own control, but I am definitely a sucker for the feeling of hitting a good song or station after minutes of static/gospel/not-what-you-want music. The comedian Mike Birbiglia has a funny bit about how good Christian rock has gotten, and I had his same experience several times today: I’d think I must have hit on something excellent, based on the guitar riff, and then it would turn out to be god music and no offense if that’s your thing but it is decidedly not mine and the scan button on the car radio is just a thrill ride roller coaster of emotions and I love it.

Today/tonight is forecast to be cold and windy and rainy in Joshua Tree so I am donating my $20 campsite reservation and have retreated down into Palm Springs for the evening. It is lovely here, and the drive down through the Morongo Valley was so nice that I stopped at some kind of park or whatnot and wandered around on the trails for a while. This high desert situation is quite pretty right now, thanks to epic/semi-catastrophic recent rain (ugh, sorry), and though I kept a weather eye out for rattlesnakes, mountain lions, and BEARS, I only managed to find a beehive (NO) and a fat lizard (YES). One trail I was on went through some tall…grass (?) for a while, and the path was quite narrow, so I figured I’d make a little noise so whatever was rustling ominously in the bushes could be alerted to go rustle ominously somewhere else. Unfortunately, the ONLY song I could think of was “Baby Shark,” NO THANKS TO YOU MOTHER, but eventually my brain dredged up the lyrics to a song I wrote in Australia, which is called “Pointy Head Bird.” If you know the title, you know the lyrics, and I hope to god I saw the one other hiker I ran into before she heard me, especially since I did myself no further non-weirdo favors by pulling over so she could go by (because I was creeping along, looking for lizards) and, when she nicely said, “Thank you,” replying, “No, thank YOU.”

The inside of my car smells like campfire and the group playing Dylan songs around their fire pit last night had a decent fiddle player and these friendly silly Dr. Seuss hills are surrounded by these other, grown-up mountains, wearing their serious snow hats and frowning to see us little ants lazing around in the sun under the palm trees. No disrespect, big mountains, but winter is nearly over and spring is here.

P.S. Holy SMOKES, Opening Day is next Thursday—I can’t remember a March Opening Day before, and I fear we will be in stern mountain wind rather than warm breezy sunshine but however that day comes, I will take it, even though it usually marks the last moment of the year when everything feels possible. But still: hope springs eternal. Let’s go, Yankees!

P.P.S. I made my first Instagram story today and oh heck yeah it turns out my well-intentioned millennial friends HAVE CREATED A MONSTER. I apologize in advance to the world in general--it is also shared on the Book of the Face should you have a burning desire to see the fat lizard (WORTH IT).