Vacation Days 8, 9, 10…

What a life!

Day 8, honestly, had a bit of hangover and permagrin from day 7. My heart overflowed into this day. Day 8 was started by visiting and looking at stuff around Joshua Tree. We went to a sculpture garden that had all sorts of interesting pieces

Desert Air BnB?

That’s a tad large for my desk, but I LOVE these things:

Then we went and learned about some cool stuff I had previously not known about that had to do with strange religious sects and languages.

And this is the cabin that had the writing all over the walls. Bizarre:

Then we went into town. I think this is the day we went to a little outdoor market where I found some of the most amazing skin care products. This is perhaps more extreme desert than where I live, so the products HAVE to be good, right?!? They have, in fact, proven to be. Of course, I didn’t take any pictures of all that, but we did see this cute little quirky crochet museum:

We went and saw this giant rock that actually, at some point, had a house built under it. I was sad to see all the defacement and tagging on such beautiful natural things.

 

We went to the store and decided to have sort of a down day. Which lasted exactly as long as it took me to lose my phone! STRESS. PANIC. I was thinking OMG, it’s GONE!! Got a tad snippy with my companion. Went back to store. Luckily, someone had turned it in and me and my little giraffe were reunited. This lovely and snappy dressing young man was the person who handed it back to me:

Later on day 8, after the great phone fiasco, we had the most amazing family as neighbors. They had this awesome dog that was kind of hard to get a picture of because he had a lot of energy. However, he was fluffy and curious and awesome:

Day 9 dawned WINDY. It was time to leave our sanctuary at Joshua Tree RV Park and begin to make the trek headed back North.

Should have known that windy in Joshua Tree would not bode well for heading North. Somewhere in the great expanse of heading North, we were unceremoniously pulled off the Freeway. The closed the entire road to all traffic because of high winds. We straight saw a giant billboard thing that had been blown over and took out part of a building! I was driving, so couldn’t take a picture, but here’s one of us trapped in L’s trailer, with a bunch of truckers at a truck stop in the middle of nowhere:

My friend L, she truly knows no strangers. And she smokes. I do not smoke. So, before I knew it, she was introducing me to these two cool looking Mexican dudes. They were best friends on a fishing trip, also trapped. They, however, were much more familiar with the area than us, and were hip to a camp ground that was right off the highway, but they said very much pretty and a good spot. Sounded good to us, so we formed a caravan when the highway was open again and proceeded to go on a different kind of adventure. This was taken the morning of day 10, as we didn’t arrive until later in the evening, but here are our saviours!

They were very sweet. They wanted to feed us! They asked if they could BBQ for us, they fed us ceviche and chips. It was pretty awesome, actually. It’s amazing, one can find friends anywhere! They took off first thing in the morning, and we decided to hang here for another day. I would TOTALLY go to this camp ground again!

This was a trip, also, of amazing canines! One of the guys had one, her name is Penny:

The guys headed on their future journey pretty early in the AM. Brains are suck funny things. It’s only been a few months since this adventure happened, but it seems to me like the pictures now, are out of sequence. Hah. At some point, we went in to a town where there was a Western Movie Museum that was sadly closed due to Covid, but always exciting to think of coming back at a different time:

And that same day, at some point, there was an amazing burger in my life.

Now, back to our amazing camping spot…..

My life does not suck.

Peace.

Vacation, Day 7

 This day gets it’s own post. This was definitely one of my favorite days of the entire vacation. Like, for reals. People, long lost friends, relationships and love and soul fulfillment are the important stuff that filled this day.

I have this friend. Holy moly, I think we’ve probably been friends now more than 30 years. When I was a supreme and very good fag hag, he was one of my besties. When I was a teenage mom, he’s one of the few friends who stayed by my side, cared, babysat, and man did we have fun and crazy times together! I haven’t seen him in more than 20 years and because we were doing this trip, I contacted him and he was totally down to meet us! So, off we headed to Pioneertown:

This is an “Old West” type town that’s been used for movie sets for a long time. It was slightly kitschy and neat. We walked around a bit, but of course, the pinnacle of this day was getting to see and spend time with my friend Joe and his awesome Husband, Al:

I adore having friends who it seems no matter how long it’s been since you were together or socialized, it all comes flooding back. You laugh, you cry, it’s like you were never apart, but then you had to have been because there’s SO MUCH to catch up on! We spent hours talking. We told our waitress at the BBQ place in Pioneertown we hoped she didn’t mind, but she was super cool with it. The BBQ was super good, and the company was amazing. Life is so interesting, how you can NOT see people for so much time, and then be able to share the struggles and strife that happens in life. And it all teaches you something.

Here’s a picture of the town, one of the storefronts:

My heart was full, on this day. At the very end, I had a moment of panic, as I thought that our next engagement, we were going to be late for, and I would have been super sad if we had missed that….

I am sure I have posted and talked in here before about being a Black Rock Ranger. At Burning Man, those of us who choose to be rangers are the non-violent mediators that exist between participants of the event (of which we also count ourselves) and organized law enforcement. I am super lucky and know that this is borne of my privilege, but in the context I have worked with them, I have always experienced law enforcement as helpful collaborators, though I know many others have had many different experiences. As much as they are striving for diversity, Burning Man is still a relatively lily white community, so this makes sense.

At any rate, a million years ago and a lot of water under the bridge ago, I was able to work with a beautiful woman who’s ranger name is “Rockit”. In particular, I had a very stressful interaction with a participant, and when I returned to HQ, there was Rockit, to ask me if I was okay, after that interaction. She’s always had a special place in my heart. Her and her sisters bought and have restored one of the most amazing wooden domes that exists. It’s called The Integratron. Go and read about it, visit if you can. This place is one of a kind in so very many ways! I’d never been, and they used to hold Ranger Training there, so I contacted her and asked if we might be able to visit. This beautiful soul comped us tickets to a sound bath. THAT is why I was upset, if we had missed it. I had mis-read the information that came with the tickers and thought the event started later than it did. It turned out, the earlier opening time was optional, but i’d had the time right for the bath. Here’s the dome, around dusk:

This is the amazing human who hosted us:

Now, this dome is acoustic perfection. Here’s what it looks like inside:

There is a place, you can stand, in the middle of the dome, and when you say or sing anything, you hear yourself as an echo chamber, but it’s like your sound vibrates with the universe in your solar plexus. I cannot describe the feeling, but it’s definitely divine and fun to play with. Saying “OM” in this space is truly magical.

Seeing lives also go full circle is also amazing. Rockit’s kids now run the Integratron, but she came to say hello. I got to meet her adult son, her nephew, all of whom were also beautiful souls and so gracious and loving.

Here was the dome at night, after the sound bath:

I had been to a sound bath before, in Reno, but this was definitely a different level. There are seven chakras right? So, most that I have participated in, had been with seven singing bowls. The folks at the Integratron have collect 23 (!!!!!!) different singing bowls and spend a lot of time figuring out what sounds awesome together, and what provides the most healing. Octaves and varying things for the other bowls that make the end result something that’s almost literally out of this world. I highly recommend this experience. I know this sounds woo woo, all I can so is go, be open to the FEELING of experiencing this, and then tell me you are unmoved, I dare you…..

And as we are leaving, I head to the restroom and find the fairy altar…

Perfection….

Vacation, day three…

 Today was a busy day! We got going reasonably early, and the first place we visited was the place with the lowest elevation in the world! Frankly, I am shocked my head didn’t explode, hahaha. Being a high desert girl, I am positive I’ve never been over 200 feet below sea level. Fitbit told me this was a 15,000 step day, and I felt it! Across the street from Badlands was a little break in the rocks, and I determined to climb to it. My companion didn’t want to, so I did it on my own.

This is the view from the top:

10/12/2021 – I sort of love that this was written in May, actually happened at the end of March and very early April, and now I’m looking back on it from almost mid-October. In some ways, I’m very much a mess….I’m too busy, always, and always think of myself and my self care last.

I know, though, that I left this post in “draft” status because there was a particular picture I was waiting for. I had forgotten to ask my companion to send it to me, and then might have had a brain fart about how to save it, on which system and blah blah. At any rate, it was of my scaling said hill, and I like it, because it says “yes, I can”.

This whole adventure for me, was about learning who I am now, and throwing away things about myself that I wasn’t sure was true or had forgotten in the past years.

This is who I am. I forgot how to exist on my own, without another person. Depending on that person for things that they may no longer be able or want to do. This is a strange place to be. A lot has happened in my world the last few years, and this trip brought a lot of it to light. I should probably start writing about all that, but let’s see if we can highlight the vacation pics first, there is time, especially during the winter, to unravel the shit show that is my life….that’s a natural time to do it.

Something I constantly keep in the back of my mind these days is the saying “just because someone doesn’t love you the way you need doesn’t mean they don’t love you with everything they have”.

Is that enough? I don’t know. It’s honorable, I suppose.

That’s where my brain is today. I am going to post this, and then probably do a compilation of the rest of the vacation pics. We’ll see…I need to assemble them in to something cohesive. Already, even that seems like a lifetime ago.

Peace.

Vacation, days 4-6

 On day 4, we went to China ranch. In many ways, this was one of my favorite parts of vacation. A very good friend, who moved to Vegas and whom I don’t think I properly appreciated when she was in my life before, met us and was able to spend a day with us.

I had never heard of “date shakes” or that they were a thing in Southern Nevada, but apparently, they definitely are. The place we went was called China Ranch. It was cool and weird all at the same time, like a lot of things in Southern Nevada hahaha. Like, you turn off on this dirt road and literally, go down this winding road that you’re like “holy shit, we might die on this road”….and the oasis of China Ranch is at the bottom. Here’s some signage and pretty desert foliage:

While there, we took a small hike, and found long term parking:

Finally, it amazes me how life finds a way in the harshest conditions imaginable.

Day 5, we sadly departed Shoshone Park and also parted ways with my friend Cindi. The other person I was traveling with, this ended up being a super educational trip for me, and taught me a lot about myself. I am a very open person, and if I have something, I am generally willing to share it with others, sometimes to my own detriment. Like, if I had a sandwich and a friend arrived that needed to eat, I’d give them half my sandwich. This is the first time I had traveled with this person, and she was an okay friend before, but you don’t really know someone until you travel with them. She is not the same sort of person I am. She isn’t a sharing person, and she is very OCD about her space and her things. This caused some stress at the beginning of the trip, and being able to have Cindi there for a couple of days was super helpful. Someone who I felt saw me, and knew me. Here is a picture of the three of us, as we headed in to town to eat breakfast before packing up for the day:

We stopped at the alien jerky place on the way towards Joshua Tree and it was one of the most hilarious things I think I’ve ever seen or experienced.

And finally, we visited Kelso as we were heading down to Southern California. It was an interesting place, for sure.

Day 6 saw us in Joshua Tree. Man, it was kind of crazy getting there. We drove and drove, and then drove some more. We went through 29 Palms, I think, and it was sort of crazy. We stopped someplace where both of us were like “this doesn’t look like a hippy haven where they hold a super cool music festival, this looks more like a yuppy/boomer in town cheap accommodation for RV’ers who don’t know any better”….hmmm….so we kept driving and sure enough, there were totally at least two places that were apparently called the same thing.

This was an amazingly cute little town area across from one of the entrances to Joshua Tree, and had a little store. We ended up here a couple times, what a great area….and very obviously a place of privilege. That little store had EVERYTHING under the sun, I bought lots of stuff and spent a kind of obscene amount of money there, but they had cool clothes, if we’d needed ANYTHING for camping, they pretty much had it, from rappelling gear to cooking things to extreme first aid kits. It was kind of wild. It seemed like the probably had 10,000 items in this dinky building. It was like one of those Harry Potter places that you just keep finding stuff in….down a bit from this cool little town frontage, there as a “flower bed” heh:

Actual Joshua Trees:

One of the first things we saw in the park. Amazing:

  I survived Joshua Tree! We were actually told we were visiting at the perfect time, that in general, a week later and it would have been too hot. They also told us that the most common visitors when Joshua Tree is 115 are German Tourists. Apparently, the like it extreme. Here is my somewhat shady pic demonstrated that, in fact, I survive Joshua Tree:

The beauty of the desert, how fleeting it is, never ceases to amaze me.

And another….

As we were leaving the park, we saw a very cool observatory with great metal art and a lifesize sun dial that could be walked around. I definitely need to come back to this place and explore more!

After adventuring in the park, we found an oasis in the desert.

This place was amazing. The food was great, we had shade, and the decorations were cool.

And finally, some camp mates. I was completely blown away that these little ducks were right by our camp spot. While we were there, eggs appeared! I was shocked and heartened. I asked about them to the staff at the park. “Oh, I’m sure they’re not fertile. Those ducks are so inbred, even if they were fertile, they’d probably be born with two heads or something. Just leave them alone”. Well, alrighty then.

Life, indeed, does find a way.

Peace.