Extreme Environment - Any Way You Want It

The brochures, the website and Wikipedia will tell you it consists of 1.6 million acres lying between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Its guardianship has passed through the hands of several government agencies, and this month is its 15-year anniversary under the auspices of the National Park Service. Of course, the government has no money, so there is little upkeep of this wonderful natural resource. If one visits frequently enough and returns to familiar spots, erosion and human vandalism can be easily spotted. The 4-wheelers tear the desert floor to shreds, leaving gouges that can be seen from a jetliner. In all the years we have visited there, we have seen a ranger twice.

In the Mojave Preserve, one will find singing sand dunes, volcanic cinder cones, vast meadows of wildflowers, the world's largest Joshua tree forests, mountain ranges, canyons and mesas. The area has been heavily mined, homesteaded and ranched. An abandoned rock-walled military outpost, a defunct railroad depot and ghost town, countless mining sites, and many deserted ranches can be found. However, all that is spread over the 1.6 million acres, so it will seem logical that there are also vast expanses of what some would call "nothing". I call it a rich landscape of countless treasures.

Elevations range from 7,929' at the top of Clark Mountain (I was nearly blown off the top of that mountain once!) to 880' above sea level on the desert floor near Baker. It is increbily hot in the summer months, with no shade available in most locations. Snow is not uncommon in the winter. Rainfall varies from 3" per year near Baker to almost 9" in the mountains. Almost 25% of the rainfall comes from summer thunderstorms and the skies are almost always dramatic. The wind can howl through the preserve in a way that will be told later in this post.

A few paved roads criss-cross the miles, but most travel in the preserve on jeep trails. I have been privileged to explore much of it on foot, having first come in on the jeep trails. There are so many diverse habitats in this beloved place that no two trips there seem the same. Shall we go high and try to keep cooler, or down to the flats in January? Do we wish to hike in mountainous terrain or on sandy washes? Many of the spots we love have names bestowed upon them in the distant past: Cow Cove, Cima Dome, The Cinder Cones, Fort Paiute, Coyote Springs, Hole in the Wall. Some of them we named ourselves: The Garden of the Gods I, II and III and others that don't bear repeating.

That recitation was as dry as a mouthful of desert sand, but I needed to establish what it is like and where this glorious locale could be found. Nothing in the hard, cold facts tells of the beauty to be taken in and the fun to be shared and the situations that help one understand how strong, or quick-thinking one is. And now I will tell my first desert tale. There will be more to come.

The forecast for the Presidents' Day weekend was dismal for Las Vegas and southern California. Wind, heavy rain, cold. We decided to go anyway. It did not bode well for us that on the trails we had traveled many times before, we took a wrong turn in the fog and took a 10-mile donut detour. Arriving at the edge of Paiute Gorge, we could barely see each other through the pea soup and marveled out loud that we hadn't driven right over the edge into the gorge.


We're pretty intrepid, and while this wasn't the best camping trip ever, we stayed. The skies were so flat he did not get one photograph. We ate dinner at 4:30 p.m. because we needed to be inside the tent by early evening - it was far too cold to sit outside in camp chairs. In the morning, the water for coffee was ice. Hiking was miserable because we had to layer so many clothes. There is an unflattering picture of me bundled up and looking like the Michelin man with all the clothes creasing at the elbows and knees.

But for all of that, on this trip the wind was the story. I couldn't tell what time it was by the position of the moon. Maybe 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. The wind howled sufficiently to blow the tent's staked-down corners up and my body was being slightly lifted by it. Various camping equipment was being blown across the desert - I heard one of the chairs slam into a yucca. The noise was incredible! He slept on. Incredibly, it began to blow harder. The tent flapped and I thought of going to the XTerra, but I didn't know how I would fare on the walk from the tent to the car. Finally, I began to choke and tear up. I wasn't going to be polite any longer. I elbowed him in the ribs. "Wake up. Talk to me for a minute. Have you ever been in anything like it?" Of course, I fully expected him to say this was nothing - that he'd experienced far worse. Instead, he sat bolt upright and said, "WTF! I've never heard anything like it! This is really terrible." I plunged to the depths. "Try to go to sleep, Limes. We can't take down camp in the gale. It probably can't actually move the 275 pounds of us." OK. I tried to sleep.


Who knows how much later I felt something silky come across my face, covering my mouth and nose? I didn't care for it much. Using my hands to explore, I learned that the wind had arced one tentpole downward and it was tent fabric covering my head. I elbowed him in the ribs again. "The tent's collapsing on us! I thought an intruder was chloroforming me, but it's the tent caving in on my face." We flipped the tentpoles back to their proper configuration. That lasted for about a minute . . . . it would not be correct to say we "woke up" in the morning. It was more like finally unwinding from the miles of folds of tent because there was finally daylight. It was not a pleasant breaking up of the camp.

He has a good curious mind. He knows how to learn things. He is a grand researcher. Logical and analytical. He'd checked the National Weather Service and other sources. He'd plotted our exact location on his mapping software. The e-mail announced itself with the little chirp Yahoo Messenger makes. "Limes, being conservative, I'd say we spent 6 hours in winds gusting at 75 miles an hour. I've got the data to support that."

Those tent poles are permanently damaged. Aluminum poles bent by blowing wind.

In my ears right now: It would still have to be Against the Wind.

Something that charmed me: I returned to work on the Tuesday after that weekend. "Hey, Limes, how was your long weekend? You guys didn't go camping in that weather, did you?" "Yes, we did, actually." "Oh, man, did you have fun?" "I did, homes!" And I meant it, too.

Some photo credits: J. D. Morehouse

Longing . . . . Yearning . . . .

I have a deeper, brighter line of demarcation in my life than most, or maybe it simply seems that way to me because I have a starring role in the drama. Nearly everything about me can be categorized as "before" or "after", for everything truly changed that much.

"Before" was childhood and youth, a long marriage, finally a child, the long career, my work life ending when I was 46, because I could do that. I thought I had the future planned quite well. OK, so the marriage wasn't sparkly and I didn't know what to do with myself if I was no longer defined by that career, but I decided I could hang in for a lifetime despite all that. The child was a nice reward to stay for. Ex already had squatters' rights in our home because he'd stopped working before I did. We were trapped in our home together all day, every day unless we looked for a purpose to get out somewhere. It took about four years for those walls to reach their maximum capacity, barely containing emotions building and unresolved for 30 years.

"After" is not yet fully defined, as I am still living this life. It's a work not yet completed. "After" has contained some of the highest highs and the lowest lows I will ever know. I'll keep you posted, interested reader.

"After" has included a man I knew from "before", but didn't know for 30 years. Our process of becoming reacquainted included, of course, the telling of the things we loved or disliked, the interests that caught our attention, the things we now knew how to do. "Do you remember the disco era?" We both hated that! "I converted to Judaism. My daughter was bat mitzvahed and worked in Israel." Wow! I came to "after" very well-traveled in Europe, Mexico, Egypt and on the world's cold and warm oceans. I could rightly be called an ocean person. He spoke compellingly of his love of the desert - photographing it, camping primitively in it. I knew nothing of the desert and was, in fact, just a little afraid of it. I'd driven through it all my life to one destination or another. It was pretty dull. Brown, hot, huge. But I was interested in him and if he was interested in the desert, then I'd check it out. "So, will you teach me about it and show me what you love?"

I have many wonderful desert adventures to share and beautiful photographs to punch up the stories. I will begin to share those soon, but this post is meant to be more general in nature. On the first camping trip, he uttered not one disapproving word about my four duffels and backpacks teeming with way too many, completely inappropriate clothes for desert camping. He didn't raise his eyebrows over my bringing shampoo and conditioner and hair wax. At least I didn't bring the blow dryer. Although friend Janne had taken me to Big Five to get boots, they weren't quite right either. But I didn't know that for a long time, because he was not critical.

When we rose up out of the deep gorge from our hike on an early outing, the wind was screaming. He was in the lead. He reached the top of the trail, where one's head pops above ground level like a gopher peeping out of its hole. "Oh, my god, our tent has blown away!" Well, he's known for his sense of humor and ironic wit. I know when he's funning me. "Ha! You can't fool this city girl!" It had. Despite being anchored by my four bags and his meager duffel full of necessities, that purple dome tent had had its stakes torn from the ground and had rolled seemingly half way across the Mojave.


It took just the one time to snare me. Emerging from the car into the dark, starlit night as we arrived, I said something I've never failed to repeat on any desert trip: "Listen to the quiet!" I learned to love the hiss of the lanterns. I reveled in the conversation and laughter and a shared cocktail in the campsite before ending our day in the tent, sometimes freezing and sometimes roasting, but always preferring to be right there, rather than anywhere else. During the months that are acceptable for camping in the Mojave - about October through May - we went out a couple of weekends per month. For years. Although we celebrate winter solstice rather than "Christmas", we have enjoyed our holiday dinner "out there" more than once. I could rightly be called a desert person.

Fast forward: nothing remains the same forever. Other interests take priority. Work schedules must be considered. One has to decide what one will spend free time doing. Cycling races took over the number one spot. If you care about someone, you support their endeavors and I have been willing to sacrifice some camping opportunities for some cycling races. The odd, rare campout has been enjoyed from time to time.

But now it's truly and officially fall. The last cycling race is in sight. I read something on his blog that said, while he has had such a racing season he can hardly believe it, he aches to be out in the starlight. I wish he'd said "eager" or "anticipate". "Ache" rather tore me up. I sent an e-mail to concur that it is time to camp. I used words like "longing" and "yearning". They are my truth. I named places like Paiute Gorge and Cow Cove. He came back with "Ibex Dunes". For I need to wake up to the sound of the coyotes and drink the good coffee dripped through the Melitta filter. I pine for the long hike in the sun, whether I am bundled up in a parka or wearing as little as possible. I am starved for the little treasures one locates on the desert floor - from shiny rocks to live little lizards, old mining tools . . . it doesn't matter the details. It's all good. I desire to scramble up the rock pile and find still more, previously undetected petroglyphs and pictographs.

I've had a difficult change of season from summer to fall this year. I almost thought I had some version of Seasonal Affective Disorder as I've been quiet, "down", moony. I don't sleep and I can't write and I can't "get right". I spy the "Not Available to Work" calendar on the wall in the office, and Limes' name appears nowhere.

Yesterday I read a comment on a blog I follow. I immediately confess that these are not my own words, but they struck me in my heart and gut. She wrote: "I long for something I cannot even name." My eyes filled with tears. I long, too. And soon we shall go camping.


All photo credits: J. D. Morehouse

In my ears right now: Bob Seger - Against the Wind. The lunatic wind right now is sucking my office steel and glass double doors open and shut, open and shut. A gust was clocked at 72 mph in Red Rock last night. The Badger is riding up in it now, though it's calmer than it was in the night. Virginia Woolf and I trembled in our bed as the wind screamed. Dylan is too aloof to care about such things.

Something that charmed me: On that first camping trip a comment was shared. "I love my little camping table and my lantern." I grew to love them, too.

Monday, Monday

It was a grand weekend and my thoughts flit like a dragonfly ~ dreamy. I took a life-changing step in the right direction this weekend. I started to solve a problem rather than run from it. I am tired of running. Worn out. And taking the first step rendered everything else across the weekend very sweet. I will surely blog about the new direction, but right now it is tender and new and not ready for the light of day. Two special people know about it and each said he was proud of me. I alluded to it to the home dudes this morning, because I need to have it travel out in waves to those I see on a daily basis. "Good shiott, Limes." "Right on, Limes." "Limes, you rock!"

I was very surprised and pleased to see another passenger board my magic bus Sunday. Welcome, CramCake! It is really lovely to have you among us. Hope you're here for a long ride.

To my delight, the Badger brought my new Ferrari computer and by last night, I was zooming again. Thank you, jesus. Thank you, lawrd. Thank you, Badger. I'm back in business at the speed I prefer!

For Tree: I read your beautiful words this morning and an image immediately popped into my head. This is a place we visit every time we can. I will blog about it soon. It has several different kinds of environments within close proximity so it is a good place to camp for several days. One can have many different experiences while only driving to one spot. When I read "vertebra dunes whisper, rivers of golden curves", this is what I saw in my mind.

Photo credit: J. D. Morehouse

Lastly, for this loose ramble, we went to see Public Enemies yesterday. We both liked it. I am not big on violence and I have a great deal of trouble watching a woman get beaten up by a huge man, but I still liked it. Johnny Depp is outstanding. The movie features a lot of people who look simply like people, not movie stars. There are some incredibly coarse, homely, interesting faces. The Badger said the film was beautifully filmed. Both of us reacted quite strongly to something quirky - the eyeglasses. The Badger and I each love vintage eyeglasses. Occasionally one of us will get a new pair and the other will say, "I'm jealous!" So this movie had specs to thrill. I think it deserves the Academy Award in the Peepers category.

In my ears right now: Beatles. On Sunday, from pure joy, I played Revolver all the way through. Twice. Then Rubber Soul. Twice. I danced! Despite being the John Lennon fan I am, I've always thought, "I'd rather see you dead little girl than see you with another man . . . " is a bit extreme.

Something that charmed me: An e-mail that said, among other things: "It was a good day. I enjoyed it."