Monday, November 25 - Saturday, November 30
I arrived at Joshua Tree in the afternoon on Monday, November 25, 2024. It was a long drive from Death Valley through some amazing desert landscapes. I had never been on that road, Route 127 from Death Valley Junction to Baker. It travels 83 miles through desolate country, large valleys bordered by high mountains. There was one little town, Shoshone, which looked very colorful and unique out here in the middle of nowhere. There is very little vegetation along the entire route. There were sand dunes (Dumont Dunes), an OHV (off highway vehicle) recreation area, and a couple BLM campgrounds. It is astonishing how many miles the valley extended, all in a flash flood zone. It is hard to believe water could rise and cover the road. But there are numerous dry washes, evidence that’s what happens from time to time. The valley is flat and miles wide.
The visitor center was very busy, and when I entered the park there was a line of cars. It took about ten minutes for me to reach the ranger kiosk and show my pass. From there, it was about ten miles to Ryan Campground, my home for the next five days. I had planned to be there two additional days, but I’ll explain that shortly.
Overall, the weather was decent, though not entirely accommodating. It was in the 55-65 range most days and 30-40 at night. It was moderately windy on several days, which made it feel colder than the temperature indicated. For the first time on this trip, I was wearing gloves and a balaclava on my morning and evening walks. I also spent more time inside the van than I had been doing for the last three months. Yes, three months plus have passed since I left Danbury. November 29 was Day 100!
I met several people at the campground. My first neighbor was Clint. I had passed a bicyclist on my drive into the park, a few miles from the campground. I found it interesting that someone was at Joshua Tree to bike ride, like me, rather than to climb, which is the main park activity. The campground is filled with climbers. Joshua Tree is world famous for its rock-climbing environment. Clint lives in Orange County and comes here often.
On Tuesday I walked over to Cap Rock and back. The rocks here are amazing, as are the trees. It is quite a combination of unique entities, one a living being, the other inanimate material. Rocks do have a life of their own, going through formative processes, which vary greatly. And it certainly seems at times that they have a level of spirit. The seem to create a feeling in me, some kind of force emanates from them. Others have talked with me about this very thing, too.
The trees are all so different in form and in the way they stand. It is as if each one has a personality, each one unique. I took some photos. One I called Elephant Rock, as in it I see a trunk and two large ears.
On Wednesday I met a woman, Julia, who is camped across the road from me with her family. I was walking back to my van, and she was talking with someone in a car that she had stopped. She said hello, the car left, and she asked me if I’d like a macaroon. She is from the San Francisco area. They come here frequently for climbing, and they are here with friends to celebrate Thanksgiving. She said they have a variety of climbing range skills in the group in terms of skill. Later we chatted again, when she was out dancing in the road with her phone playing music. “I’m having my own little dance party,” she told me. That night they had a large group.
I had a thought today to take a course in “problem solving.” This relates to a talk I had with Dave, the camp host. I talked with him today for about ten minutes. He was in the military thirty years and also worked as corrections officer for five years. I asked him about his camp host experience. He said most of the time it was great, though occasionally there are situations that need resolving. He made a remark about looking to find commonalities with people. In doing so, he was able to avoid the issues or problems that might otherwise be prevalent. It made me think of studying problem solving techniques, and I think this ties in with a course I took at Westconn, years ago, with Dr. Connie Hellman: Decision Making in Small Groups. It was an interesting course, as was another course I took with her: Non-verbal Communication.
Dave and his wife, Jerri, are here until May. They are most recently from Tennessee, near Great Smokey National Park, where they spent a year hosting. From here, they might go to Maine at some state parks to host or to Nevada at Great Basin National Park.
After talking with Dave, I went to a little trail called Oyster Bar. I have no idea why it is called that, but I believe someone somehow looked at the rocks in the area and thought of oysters. It is interesting and fun to look at the rocks and imagine what they conjure up in our minds, like we often do with clouds.
On Thursday, I finally went for a bike ride. One reason I had not done so was simply to give my legs a rest. They did a lot of work at Death Valley. Another reason was that Tuesday and Wednesday were very windy. I did a ride, ten miles out, ten miles back, past another section of the park called Jumbo Rocks. Jumbo Rocks has some more amazing rock formations. There are so many different sections: Hidden Valley, Hall of Horrors, and The Maze are a few others, but there are even more that are stand-alone and, as far as I know, do not have a name. However, when I was here last year, my campground neighbor David, from Fruita, Colorado, told me that there are guidebooks that provide names and difficulty levels for rocks all over the park. He was there to climb.
In the evening, on a walk again, I found myself wandering down the dirt road into the campground. About a hundred yards ahead of me was a woman with a dog. The dog kept barking, barking, barking. I wondered to myself, “Do dogs bark in a manner similar to how people talk? Do they just want to express themselves, to be heard?” For people, talking, and having someone listen, is a fulfilling activity. Maybe so for dogs, too, in some way.
The next day, walking past a campsite, I saw them again. She was there, and her husband had the dog on a leash. She said hell, then she told me the dog had been watching me while out walking the day before. I said hi to the dog. The dog seemed to ignore me. I said, “I’m here now and you don’t want to bother with me?” The husband walked over to me, dog on his leash, and I petted him and talked some more, asking about his time here, having fun.
They had kids visiting yesterday, two of their own and two who were friends of the family. The “kids” were all in their early twenties. At least two were back from school in the east. The kids left last night so they could do a Turkey Trot back home in Redland. The parents hardly seemed old enough to have kids in their twenties.
Later, 5:10PM: It is cold out! I just came back from a walk. It was a nice walk, not what I expected, because I took a new turn and saw new things. Joshua Tree has so much variety because the trees and the rocks have such individuality. I walked on the east side of that large free-standing rock, which I learned, just an hour earlier, is named Headstone. There were four women sitting at its base talking and doing a lot of laughing. They had been climbing Headstone earlier.
Walking back, I stopped at the signs where it lists arrivals and departures. I talked with a woman there from San Diego briefly. She is here overnight only, drove up today, drives back tomorrow, but she’s glad to do some climbing here. She was very friendly.
Later that night, I lost a filling. It felt like something was stuck between my teeth. I tried to push it out with my tongue, and a piece of filling broke off. So the next project is to try to find a dentist.
On Friday, I talked with my new neighbors, two guys from France in their mid-20s, about their travel plans. They flew into LA and have rented a Class C RV for ten days. They are on a whirlwind tour to see national parks. They mentioned Grand Canyon and other places in Utah. I wrote out some ideas on a piece of paper, along with campground names, and discussed it with them. They seemed happy to have the help. I gave them my contact information and told them they could contact me if they had any questions.
The four women camping on the other side of them are those who were climbing Headstone. They are probably in the same age range. They were taking together last night, there was a great deal of laughter and flirtatiousness!
In the afternoon, I did 27 miles, 2h 2m. Lots of traffic. I had called three dentists, but I did not hear back from any of them. It being a holiday, I did not expect to hear back. Maybe tomorrow, but probably not until Monday.
On Saturday morning I talked with another climber I had met a couple days ago. He has been here seven days. He has a VW bus and a lot of gear: heaters, cook stoves, three bottles of propane, two bicycles …. He had a lot of people over, too, for a campfire and fun. It seems there were a few large groups here for the holidays. There was the family from San Francisco. I don’t know if that’s the same group as Julia’s or not. They were next to each other. The San Franciscans had a party one night and there must have been twenty people over there.
Later in the afternoon, I met a guy from Connecticut. He had lived in Danbury, went to school at Westconn, and has lived in a number of local towns, including Ridgefield. But he has not been back there since college. He graduated in 1993. He saw my CT plate and came over to talk. I gave him my contact information.
It is amazing the difference it makes having the temperature makes. It was about ten degrees warmer today than it has been the past few days. Some of the other days had stronger wind, too, so much so that we campers talked about the wind among ourselves. Part of that discussion was the fact we were doing less of the activities we would have liked to do.
I have been here six nights tonight. In a way, it is not enough. That’s partly because of the weather. The combination of colder temperatures and winds on the strong side have made it less than ideal for outdoor activities, like riding, hiking, and just sitting outside enjoying the place, the overall environment though my senses. I think I would have enjoyed it more had the weather been better. Also, being here Thanksgiving week had its downside. The roads have been busy, and that affected my cycling efforts. There have been crowds at every parking area. I am leaving two days early so I can find a dentist in the area of my next stop, White Tank Mountains, which is on the outskirts of northwest Phoenix.
Adjust. Adapt.
There is a rock pile in my campground. It is about three feet in diameter, roundish in shape, rising gradually to a center point that is a little shy of one foot high. How did it get here? What was the beginning of it, the motivation for it. Who, what, when, why, and how? It had to begin with a single stone, then others were added. Was there a game involved? What was the purpose? What’s the story?
That’s how many things are in life. There is always a story, especially with important things.
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