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California and the Mojave Desert
March 14 - 24, 2018

We started off our trip visiting my dear friend Marjorie in La Jolla. She and her husband Mort were so generous and wonderful and showed us all around that fancy (and beautiful) town. It was so great seeing her - we had such a fun walk on the beach just before sunset.

Her adorable kitty Chin Chin. Not pictured is her other kitty Moxie. Both sooo cute. The next day we headed off for the desert. One last stop at a diner for real food before we go off the beaten track. This is Ludlow Diner, which looks to have not changed in decades.

For the first couple of days, we stayed at the Hole-in-the-wall campground about 20 miles into the Mojave National Preserve. We were meeting Aaron's old friend Anne (who lives in Las Vegas, about 2 hours away) the next day and wanted to be somewhere that she would find us. It was great! Only about 20 sites, not even half full. It was so big that we didn't really notice the people who were there. PLUS, we got the very back site which has a long path that you walk to get to the camp. Our neighbors were far away :)

We explored the whole area until sundown. So many beautiful things to see! So many birds and rabbits! So much quiet!

Our trusty BioStove. Thanks Daddy! This place is tooooo windy to rely on an alcohol stove. Tinder is hard to come by without any substantial trees, but we made do.

Aaron's friend Anne, who is a professor at UNLV, came and met us for a day hike with her 2 adorable dogs. It wasn't hard to find us coz there were probably only a dozen people there, but its great to know you can make plans to meet in the middle of the desert without having to rely on a cell phone :)

We went on an amazing 8 mile hike that took us around the mountains of our camp in a loop. It was so neat to see what it looked like on the other side. And we were alone practically the entire time. So peaceful.

That's Anne's dog Rebel hiking with us. She dressed him in a purple sweater to keep him visible. He's the cutest dog on earth.

He's not having ANY of this climbing nonsense.

Metal rings to help climb into the canyon.

Lenticular clouds!

Dried out beaver tail cactus.

A wash. When it rains heavily, these giant flash floods buckle the roads. We could see sand on the dips from recent flooding. This terrified me, and I really thought we were going to be washed in because it was raining so hard. It did not :)

Rain on the way...

Beautiful sunset lighting up the distant mountains like Mars.

There was a cargo train about 35 miles from our camp, and when the sun hit the side of the cars it looked surreal!

The next day we took one of my favorite hikes. It was about a 10 mile drive down a gravel road and you could see hundreds of miles in every direction. You felt utterly alone on the planet. And the sun was BRUTAL. It wasn't hot, but there was no wind and it gets damn strong. The silence was something I have never quite experienced.

The trailhead

Lizard!

A big, freshly dug hole. Maybe a jackrabbit?

Back to camp for some desert nightlife.

We had enough of the campground scene, even though at that point there were only a handful of people there. We took a kind of scary 15 mile drive down a dirt road, and found a spot off the road with a fire ring to spend the rest of our days. There are little rings everywhere, but you have to wander off the road (preferably in a 4 x 4. Yikes.) to find them. The reward is complete and utter solitude.

View of Kelso Dunes about 35 miles away from the dirt road.

We found a ring site, and I was WAAAAY too scared to drive down this rocky road any further. It is DEFINITELY not made for low clearance rental cars. Big rocks strewn all around. We stopped for what looked like a PERFECT place, nestled in the Joshua trees, and set up our tent.

Looks beautiful, right?

We were quite pleased with ourselves.

The land around us was so beautiful we decided to explore by walking further down the rocky road. Just a couple hundred yards from our site, we saw this:

And we just looked at each other and said ''Pack up the tent, we're moving.'' It was the perfect site! And if my lil car made it this far, why not push it a teeny bit further. Best decision ever. This was heaven. We scrapped the hike we had planned, and spent the whole day exploring around our campsite, in the most dense Joshua Tree forest in the world. We were VERY HAPPY :)

Aaron playing guitar in the rocks. It sounded awesome.

Bird of prey.

Prey.

More desert nightlife.

So here's our desert adventure story... We spent the whole day exploring the area around our camp and we were positive we were the only ones out here. There is literally nothing but a fire ring and a dirt road. We sat happily around the campfire as it turned to dark, and then suddenly we see a headlamp bobbing down the dirt path. Then it went into the Joshua tree patch just about 50 feet from us.

And then the headlamp turned off.

I was PETRIFIED. I didn't know what to do! Firstly, we thought we were alone. Second, there is nothing over by those trees. So I whisper “WHAT DO WE DO?! WHAT DO WE DO?!“ And Aaron, like a true New Yorker, says “Its nothing.“ HAHAHAHAHAHAH! As if we're seeing a fight happen down the block and he says ''It has nothing to do with us.'' The truth is, he was petrified too, but has a brain that works the opposite of mine: When I get scared, I fantasize about things that are ridiculously unlikely. When Aaron gets scared, he zaps anything terrifying out of his brain immediately. The thing is: if the light turned back on again and it was some dude, I would never ever be able to sleep that night. If it NEVER turned back on, I would also never, ever be able to sleep that night. But the ULTIMATE happy answer was this: It turned back on. We ask who's there. A sweet Californian lady's voice says “I'm sorry I scared you! I didn't see you! I'm just camping down the road and decided to take a pee here!“ We all laughed HYSTERICALLY at the scenario, and she went on her way. For about 5 minutes, I thought I was going to pee in my pants. What a lovely ending.

The next day we hiked up Teutonia Peak, which was just a couple of miles from where we were camped. It was AWESOME.

Me climbing to (almost) the top! Not even a fear of heights!

This is the view from the ground. We climbed to a little hole in those top rocks.

Back for camping nightlife.

The next day we went to Kelso Dunes. This great sign was at the trailhead :)

But the truth is, we couldn't even make it a mile. The sun is absolutely BRUTAL. The dunes were spectacular (from a distance) but neither of us had the desire to walk through hot sand under an unforgiving sun. It just isn't fun. I don't even like the beach. But we did sit and have a nice lunch and saw a lot of snake tracks.

That night, the wind really started to pick up and it started raining. I climbed on a big rock by our camp and leaned in so the wind held me up. Such a thrilling thing to do!

Because of the washes I mentioned earlier, I didn't think it was a good idea to stay down that dirt road when it had been raining so much. So we decided to go back to the Hole-in-the-wall and I think it was a good idea. I didn't want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with no way to get out in case a flash flood decided to tun the road into an impassable mudbath. There were plenty of deep 4 x 4 tracks to let us knows it does indeed happen. It rained HARD all day, but we managed to make a fire and a hot meal. I think were getting good at this stuff :) Just as it started to get miserable and boring, it stopped.

Funny thing is... while we huddled during the worst bits, we joked that we were going to call the Forest Service and ask them if they could take care of this rain. And would it kill you to give us a rainbow? HAHAHAHA. And then:

After over a week in the desert, the longest I have ever gone without showering, we packed up and headed to L.A. Of all places to enter looking feral... HA! We stayed with my dear old friend Dave Skwarczek at his adorable house in Laurel Canyon (just over the hill from West Hollywood) It was so great. He gave us a grand tour up to the top of the hill he lives on where you can see the HOLLYWOOD sign. For lunch he took us to In and Out (loved it!). For dinner he took us to Cliftons, a classic Los Angeles restaurant with countless rooms and taxidermy animals and dioramas everywhere and a giant fake Redwood tree in the center. We got special tokens to get into the secret Tiki Bar on the 4th floor. SO MUCH FUN. Dave was such a spectacular host, and really spent a lot of time and energy giving us the L.A. experience. It was fabulous. Such a perfect way to end the trip.