Wandering Aimlessly

This is long, and I apologize. But I wanted to remember! And it's three days' worth of Pictures of the Day. Link to all the photos at the bottom.

This weekend, I went camping in Joshua Tree National Park with Ryan, Jake, and Gen. We left Friday night after work and, three hours later, arrived in Joshua Tree to find EVERY CAMPSITE FULL. We hoped against hope, driving around for about 45 minutes, and then gave up. We pulled into a parking lot, parked, and dragged our sleeping bags out into the middle-of-nowhere desert to sleep under the stars. Here we are, setting up camp by lantern light.

It was exciting! The pack of howling coyotes in the distance made it even moreso. *laugh* It was freezing cold, compounded by the astonishing amount of moisture in the air that had soaked blankets, pillows, and shoes by morning. Thankfully, it did not saturate the sleeping bags, but pulling your blanket up and having it be wet--in the middle of the desert!--was a surprise.
Saturday morning, we drove around some more and claimed a campsite (success!). We set up tents, had ourselves some breakfast, and set out for a hike.

The first place we went to was more of a climb than a hike. I was traveling with a bunch of daredevils! I don't trust myself climbing. I think it's due to an overactive imagination that has no problem picturing all the ways I could tumble down a hundred feet of rocks and break my back and die tragically. With a little coaxing and a lot of promsing they'd catch me if I fell (yeah, right!), I did manage to get to the top.

Here, though, we have Ryan taking a giant leap from one boulder to another. It doesn't look that far until you realize that these rocks themselves are quite a bit above ground level. CRAZY, that one! He didn't die, or even hurt himself, so I guess it's okay. You won't find ME doing that kind of thing!

By the time we got to the top of the rocks, the view was amazing. Gen and Ryan set off to be more daring on another set of rocks, Jake went to explore, and I laid down in the sun, looking out over Joshua Tree, and watched lizards scamper past. It was lovely. What goes up must come down, so after a while it was time to retrace our steps. I think it might have been more difficult DOWN. My pants would agree, as the back pocket is torn from a rather graceful butt-slide. *laugh* I'm the coolest, I know.

After the climbing, we headed for a hike to Barker Dam. It was a very pretty trail through some of the most lush parts of the desert. Because of the dam, there's a pool of water that apparently attracts mountain sheep, ducks, and other wildlife (the park was pretty populated this first weekend of spring, so I don't think the animals were feeling social). We also saw a cave with Native American paintings and symbols, which was very, very cool.

After the hike, we headed back to the campsite for lunch and to just relax. As evening came closer, we all got a bit goofy. For Saturday's picture, we used the setting sun as a projector and a large rock as a screen and played around with our shadows. We are DORKS.

The evening was spent cooking dinner over the fire, roasting marshmallows for s'mores, and just hanging out. It got COLD OMG, and even in four shirts, a hooded sweatshirt, jeans, a sleeping bag, AND a fleece blanket, inside a tent, it was cold. That's the desert for ya!

This morning, we had pancakes for breakfast courtesy of Jake, and headed out. We saw this sign we hadn't seen Friday night in the dark. It looks like it's made of the trunk of an actual Joshua Tree, but the "leaves" on the top are made of either beer or Sprite bottles, we couldn't tell. Hee!

All in all, a fantastic trip. I'm CRAZY SORE from either the climbing or the sleeping on hard ground, I can't be sure. We'll definitely be doing it again.

If you're interested, the Camping Photo Set. Views from the "top of the world," the campsite, the Indian cave paintings, the campers, and our utter dorkiness inside. ;)