I spent the weekend out in Joshua Tree having some good clean white trash fun. I never realized how much fun it is to be an adult. You can really have a great time (and be responsible too!) The love and I headed out to a friend's property near Joshua Tree for the weekend. We partook of off roading, shooting guns, creating fires and blowing stuff up.
Spending much of my formative years stuck in the barren midwest, I really distanced myself from my "redneck" neighbors. I never drank, you'd never find me in a beefed up pick-up and I certainly was not much of a heckler. I was a lover, not a fighter. I'd be listening to Morrissey not AC/DC. But really what I was, was mixing up the homogeneity. I'm a big believer a wide range of possibilities and expressions. Therefore when the possibilities start to narrow, I take it upon myself to take on the characteristics necessary to open the possibilities. Thus it was necessary for me to get in tune with my white-trashiness this weekend. And it was damn fun too.
I didn't realize how much fun it was to drive the FT (what we call our monster truck) off road. Sam and I caravaned with some friends and found a playground. We drove up and down trails, rocks and attempted to drive up a mountain sand track. The tires dug into the slipping sand and we got 3/4 up the way up before reversing it. We really didn't want to get stuck on the other side and we didn't feel like airing down the tires. Instead we went back to playing in the sandy trails, egging our friends up and down small mountains of rock. (All on trails mind you, we're responsible off roaders!)
Back at the ranch, we broke out the guns for some target practice. It had been years since I picked up a gun and I was surprised to find that my first shot hit the target (a metal plate.) Over the weekend we set up various targets (water bottles, metal plates and other more flammable materials.) I was decked out in my urban camo and really had a great time watching all us lined up shooting at the poor water bottles.
Evenings were filled with fire making. I have a love affair with fire that doesn't usually get to be expressed. When I would go camping with my friends in high school, I'd make sure I was the first one up in the morning to stoke up the evening fire. I had many fond evenings around the Van-B-Que at Burning Man this year, keeping the fire up. And a few special treats found their way into the fire by my hand.
Saturday night wind threatened to keep us inside the small desert house. It was blustery, cold and blowing down the tents. Screaming through the washes and between the cracks. I wondered if we were going to be able to get a fire started and contained. As luck would have it (and credit to planning) the host had thought to bring some old washing machine drums. S and I drug one over to the fire pit and promptly started piling wood in it. A few moments later a fire was crackling and spitting. We pulled the camp chairs close. Folks started venturing out of the house and soon the fire was surrounded. We had two more wash basins and proceeded to make cozy fires in various parts of the yard. Soon, three dryer fires were keeping us all warm. As Orion flew across the sky I flitted from one fire to the other adding wood and stoking the warmth.
On the way back to LA, I wanted to show Sam Joshua Tree National Park, while my secret agenda was to take this 4x4 only accessible road from inside the park to Dillon Road near Indio. We were both game turned off the pavement. The road wound down into a valley filled with grass and swallows before ascending a mountain range filled with Joshua Trees and Teddy Bear Cholla Cactus. We easily reached the peak and then twisted our way down the road which was really a wash. We drove through sculptured canyons, the FT descending dry rock waterfalls and navigating around boulders. I kept thinking, "this must be what early explorers experienced on horseback." I was amazed that our modern world has created vehicles that can go really anywhere.
We threaded our way through the traffic on the 10 and rolled our big baby into the West Hollywood driveway. I washed the smoky three day desert dirt from my body and fell asleep to Anime.
I'll miss the sound of artillery shelling from the nearby military base in the morning. Pictures of the whole trip here.
"this must be what early explorers experienced on horseback."
Yes, and then they went back to their washing machine drum fires for the evening.
Posted by: e d scott | December 01, 2005 at 08:36 PM