in the land of the lorax

we didn't mean to set up camp next to a group of musically-inclined naked female hippies, but i guess that just made our trip even more exciting... for the men in our group, that is. each morning as we fought persistent squirrels away from our breakfast, we audienced a rather compelling display of nude yoga in the campsite next door. (barbara was so stricken by the women's liberation pow-wow to which we were witness that she immediately became a domesticated goddess. "here nathan, let me make you a sandwich.")

flies, weighed down by the sun, wafted over and about our fallen left-overs.

in spite of the lazy heat, our days filled up quickly. we found the shady sides of rocks to clamber up and repel down. yes, even i- one not enamored by heights- repelled down the side of an almost perpendicular face... but it took much convincing on the part of my fellow adventurer to get me to step off the edge. "i rock climb because it scares me," brad said, as if that would encourage me to will myself to my doom. relying on a boulder, rope, and my own sanity (which, believe me, has reason to be questioned), i walked backwards off the edge of the rock.

it was worth it for the chance to hang tens of meters over valleys of joshua trees.

when brad and i reached the ground, an inquisitive little blonde girl ("much like i imagine you were at her age,” he said) quizzed us on the climb. don't try this at home, hon. she scrambled away into the rocks, leaving her parents in her wake. much to our amusement, her mother, not particularly comfortable jumping from rock to rock (much like my mother was at her age, wink), flapped her arms to help her "fly" between them.

our hands grew tender from gritty granite, and we ventured out into the desert, hiking up to the park's highest peak one day and exploring an old mine shaft the next. after having reached the summit of ryan mountain, we came face-to-face with a camera-shy big horned sheep. for reasons unbeknownst to us, said sheep did not feel like joining us on our way down and, instead, shot off into the rocks. (if only he'd gotten to know us first! looks aren't everything.) but i understand the sheep's reservations about strangers. after all, i had the same reaction to the rattlesnake we almost stepped on the following day...

we were welcomed back from our day trips by the singing hippies, who were always a) topless, b) screaming, c) holding hands, or d) burning photographs of the ex-boyfriends... all of which are, of course, things i always make a priority on my camping trips.

meals proved to be quite interesting. who knew crows had a thing for aluminum foils tubes? or that squirrels could be so brash as to refuse the eggs we left them and actually demand something else? such gall. one squirrel almost met his end when he made the mistake of going after brad's plate. a knife missed his neck by a half-inch. i screamed and tried not to picture what our picnic table would have looked like had the squirrel taken another second to move.

the weekend ended with a drive up to a point overlooking palm springs and the like at sunset. in our grungy 3-day dirt, we sat and watched the sky turn red and the mountains fade to blue. as we stood to leave and as the pretty polluted mist filled the valley below, a girl walked by in high heels and a cocktail dress. i left joshua tree thankful that her cleanliness looked out of place.