I needed to get away from the city, and while Death Valley would have been nice the twelve-hour roundtrip wasn’t terribly appealing. The secondary option was Joshua Tree National Park, which is also a nice place and one that requires about half as much driving. After arriving late in the day I was able to enjoy the beginnings of dusk before setting off on my daily run. Six miles along a dirt road turned out to be amazingly tough when I realized that for the first half of the run I’d been on a gradual downhill with a tremendous wind at my back. The return trip was definitely not an enjoyable experience. Despite the difficulty of pushing uphill through wind it was nice not to have to run on a treadmill, and in addition to the scenery I also briefly enjoyed the company of two coyotes.
After I finished running it was fairly dark, and I was immediately reminded why I love to come to the desert to relax — the silhouettes of the joshua trees stood out crisply against the millions of stars that filled the sky. Palm Springs to the south is keeping the night from being perfectly clear, but I can still pick out every constellation that my dad ever taught me during our childhood camping trips in Maine. It’s no wonder that ancient people picked out patterns in the night sky — with stars this vivid it’s impossible not to let your imagination begin drawing lines from point to point. The desert’s other surprise was a bobcat that crossed the road in front of me while I was looking for a camping spot — first time I’ve ever seen one in the wild.