Location: Joshua Tree, California, USA

First thing this morning after checking out of Treasure Island, the three of us stopped and grabbed 10 litres of water for our adventure deep into the desert! Slowly we left the red rock of Vegas behind and traded it for sand dunes, cacti and endless joshua trees. The asphalt shimmered and the sun got so hot I actually put on sunscreen. Unbelievable. We passed through little almost forgotten desert towns, coming ever closer to Joshua Tree National Park.

Finally we made it! We stopped every few minutes for some kind of picture or another, since every corner yielded something new and interesting. At one point we came over a ridge and ended up smack in the middle of a cactus garden that had weird ombré cactuses as tall as me!

At another point we saw a bunch of cars parked off on the side of the road before we realized people were gawking at a giant rock that looked just like a skull. Another corner after that and we’re staring out over a valley of hundreds of Joshua trees, all twisty and spiky and alien, almost like they are mutated and not actually meant to grow that way. To be fair the whole park felt a little bit like Mars.

We did a short hike through a popular rock field called Hidden Valley, just to get a taste of the inner parts of the park without embarking on a full on hike in 32 C heat. At quite a few places in the park, climbers were taking advantage of the insane structures and had set up gear to climb. I have no idea how they were doing it. Even just one hour casually walking outside and we were turning pink. I can’t imagine actually exercising. The extreme AC in the car was a life saver from the beating sun.

At the end of the day we decided to drive up to the top of Keys View, which looks over the San Andreas Fault and off in the distance you can spot Palm Springs. We stayed up here in the setting sun all through golden hour, chatting away and taking in the incredible view. The heat and the days activities had us all pretty tired so we trekked back to the car to call it a day.

We adventured into town where we found some amazing local pizza and crashed at our B&B to watch some Netflix and unwind. Eventually when the moon was high we stepped outside to lay under the stars for awhile, staring at the Milky Way and a few constellations that our Astronomer ex CIA host had pointed out for us.

I am now laying on the fold out couch, tucked into the most comfortable sheets I’ve ever been in, writing away. I can hear Kat snoring softly in the next room, the wind blowing lightly against the shutters and a dog barking every so often somewhere off in the distance. I feel like every night so far this trip I’ve felt even more relaxed than the one before.

Something crazy has to happen one of these days, right?

Sav