Desert Adventures

Camping once meant a tent and a fire pit, nothing much else. Often that meant using bushes for a restroom. I appreciate roughing it, and always went "pshaw" at the RV crowd but with scoliosis, kids, and an appreciation for comfort and flush toilets, I have succumbed to the inevitable- an RV.

This weekend we decided rather last minute to go camping. We loaded up the RV and I drove behind the RV past urban sprawl, wind farms, date palms, tumbleweeds bigger than my car (holy cow!), and then, dirt and rocks. We found a little remote town with, supposedly, RV spots that opened at 2:00pm. It was 4:00 pm (we'd have got there on time but pregnant ladies, ahem, that's me, need to go to the bathroom. A lot.) The campground was booked and then some. We drove around and found out a friend would be tent-camping nearby but gave us GPS coordinates and you know, not real directions. We did consider camping at another campground/resort but I put my foot down.

Why? Well the RV "resort" meant the RVs were parked so close you literally had just a walking space between them, and it was like The Stepford Wives. We drove through the park and like clockwork, each RV door opened and out walked a blue-haired lady and her overly tanned husband, each carrying a dish of food. A mass exodus of the elderly, each with the requisite potuck dish, mindlessly walking in unison to an unknown location. We got out of there fast.

I said we could just dry camp, using what water and generator power we could muster if in need. So we drove around some more until we found our spot off a dirt road and made camp.

We were going to have a campfire, smores, the whole experience but right as we set up, a gust of wind arrived and dd not leave. In fact, it strengthened, and kept going strong. As we slept (or tried to), the RV rocked back and forth like bad airplane turbulence, the wind howled and whistled (can a whistle also scream? Cause it was whistle-screaming).

I did enjoy looking out the window though, the landscape illuminated by a three-quarter full moon. A few stars peeked out and the moon lay shadows from the flowering mesquite bushes. The remoteness meant we were in an official dark-sky area, without the omnipresent orange glow of civilization. I have never been anywhere without a bit of the ugly orange hue, and I was in awe of what real night looks like. The sands reflected back in opalescent blue-gray, the mountains a different shade of blue gray, and the sky, another. It was other-worldly and gorgeous.

The sun came up, bathing everything orange and giving a gorgeous high contrast view of the landscape, quickly replaced with the typical dull soft desert tones. We packed up and left, our brief trip done with, but  I do hope to return.