Happiness is the Desert

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. ~ Edward Abbey

One night of easy living at the edge of the desert before I head out to camp for five days in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.  This park is one of my favorite places and is a bit of a secret despite being voted as one of the best parks in America on a number of occasions.   Just to the south of Joshua Tree, Anza-Borrego gets overshadowed by the more well-known national park.  For example, I reserved my campsite two weeks ago and in Joshua you couldn’t find a campsite for this week over two months ago.  Also, Anza-Borrego is still one of those places that allows open primitive camping.

The other thing about Borrego Springs is that it’s a dark sky city, so with so little artificial light at night and so much artificial space, this is one of the few places in America were the night skies are just layers of stars on stars.

Being out here always makes me think about Edward Abbey, if you have never read his stuff, and you have an interest in the outdoors, it’s time to go get yourself a copy of Desert Solitaire or one of his other books.  I’ll leave my own philosophizing on nature til after days in the sand and the dust, there’s always a lot of inspiration in wide-open spaces.

Although I’ll so some hiking each day, this place is not a great training ground for the Appalachian Trail (AT), not enough climbing for enough miles, but it will keep in shape and give me time to continue my decompression.  The next couple of weeks are all about getting ready for the AT both mentally and physically.  Physically I’m on my way, mentally, I need to keep slowing down, keep easing off of the throttle, becoming less dependent on normal everyday life in anticipation of a simpler new normal.  Not an easy new normal, but certainly a simpler one, perhaps a better one.  Hopefully you’ll find some time during the holiday madness to simplify, relax and find a new normal for yourself, and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane