Friday, September 5, 2008

Joshua Tree

Despite this blog being about Hong Kong, I'm still not ready to face my commute and the bustle of the city. So I'm taking a moment to reminisce about one of my favourite parts of my summer - camping in Joshua Tree.

Joshua Tree has always been one of my favourite places on earth. It's much more than an album, though I do like that, too. From the time I was little, I went camping and rock climbing there, so I was appalled to realize that my kids hadn't experienced the same thing.

Granite, Kestrel and I went out in July for a few days. It's usually way too hot in the high desert that time of year, but it's still fun. I expected to spend the days lolling in the shade panting and then venturing out in the late evenings and early mornings just like the coyotes.

But we had the strangest weather and even got rained on. It made for a perfect, comfortable, relaxing trip. The kids got the idea perfectly: Granite lay about reading on the tops of rocks and Kestrel found little holes to hide and play in.

It was the first time I'd taken the kids camping by myself, and it turned out to be a triumph. We didn't have a very deluxe camp set-up, but I didn't expect any sort of weather. We saw lizards and ground squirrels, hawks, coyotes and lizards. We even saw big horn sheep, which I'd never seen before in all my years of visiting the park.

I took dozens of pictures of the world reflected in Granite's cool sunglasses, but only a few of the world in the side mirror while I was driving. It's always important to be safe.

1 comment:

Sarah A said...

Your trip sounds so wonderful. I'm glad that your children got to have one of the experiences that meant so much to you growing up. It's nice that you had parents who taught you the wonders of nature.