Joshua Tree
My first stop on my road trip home after the Desert Hearts Festival was Joshua Tree National Park. I drove out there from the festival as a nice stop to decompress in quiet nature after such a fun sensory overload :) I spent one night there and went for a hike the next morning before it got too hot.
This was just behind my site at Jumbo Rocks campground. The sun was setting so I climbed up onto these particular jumbo rocks to catch a look at the warm sunset colors. I saw these two watching it for a bit then they stood up to take photos of each other and I snapped this. I like taking photos of other people taking photos.
Feeling pretty tired, I basically just went right back to the van and crashed after this, having successfully taken a sunset photo, haha.
This was the first shot on an old roll of Portra 160 VC 120 film (expired 2010) given to me by my friend Jon. I used my Mamiya RB67 with a 90mm lens.
I love how the sunset colors came thru on this film. The darker shade in the sky on the left hand side of the frame is some sort of artifact on the film. Not sure if its a color shift from the age of the film or an artifact of processing it. I think it adds to the frame, as it nicely aligns with the people, drawing your eye over to them.
As I composed the frame, I aimed to line the people up to be a similar distance from the edge of the frame as the peak on the right hand side as that felt like a nice balance to my eye. The edge tension of the dark yucca on the right also adds some depth in a way that I liked.
I’d never seen a Joshua Tree before - they’re quite alien looking. They’re also pretty sharp, I scraped my leg on one while hiking and was surprised how firm those spikes are! ouch! There’s these little fruit-looking bunches on them (they look sort of like banana clusters) and I wondered what they do - do they fall off and does something eat them? I didn’t have service and didn’t look it up.
I did a short hike up to the top of some hill I forgot the name of and don’t feel like looking up, haha. It was fairly windy and kept blowing off my hat, so I goofily hiked a lot of it with my hand on top of my head. My other hand was holding my camera bag strap and I laughed to myself thinking I looked like I was hiking while doing that ‘pat your head and rub your belly’ thing. The landscape was pretty and very interesting to me - I always find it amazing that anything can live out in the desert like that. The Joshua Trees dot the landscape along with various bushes and cacti with occasional outcroppings of these giant boulder piles.
As I started the hike, two people (mother and son?) started on the trail just before me and were bickering with each other in a really nasty way. It sounded like the mom dragged the son (who looked like mid 20s - not young!) out for the hike and they were going back and forth on whether it was 3 miles or only 1.5, calling each other nasty names and really ripping in to each other. I knew it was 3 mi round-trip but I kept my mouth shut. Listening to them was such a shock after coming from the festival where people were so friendly, playful, and really trying to lift each other up. “holy shit, these people are so miserable! yikes!” I thought to myself then trail ran past them so I didn’t have to listen to it anymore. It made me wonder if they realized how nasty they were being to each other or if they were so caught up in their dynamic that it didn’t even register.
A few minutes later, the next folks further up the trail let out such a bubbly giggling laugh as one of them dramatically acted like they were falling over onto an overlooked cactus as they tried to take a photo next to a yucca plant. I stopped and offered to catch a photo of them together on their phone during which they let me in on their little secret: “It is such a lovely day out here today, don’cha think?”
I agreed.
It was fun to drive the van out here on some of the dirt roads and check out all the Joshua Trees. Some of them are pretty big!
After spending the morning driving around a bit and doing that hike, I continued on my way back north. But first, I had to pay to get out of the park! When I got to the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park the day before, I drove up to the little ranger booth with cash in hand for entry only to find out that they didn’t accept cash - card or apple pay only. Hmm, I reached over for my wallet and realized it was somewhere in the back of the van. Not wanting to hold the line up, I asked if I could pull over to find my card and he kindly said “Oh, just pay on your way out, not a problem at all!” That was nice.
So as I’m getting ready to make my way out of the park, I stop to find my wallet. The inside of the van was a bit discombobulated after a weekend at the festival, so I wasn’t sure where it was. I generally didn’t bring it in with me into the event since I didn’t need it in there, so I started searching through where I remembered placing it in the van and couldn’t find it. I searched for about half an hour, taking everything out of my backpack, the dufflebag I’d put my clothes in, glove compartment, I popped the up top to check around the sleeping area up there… no wallet! uh oh…
Thinking back to the festival, I remembered sitting down during the last 30 mins of the last set looking out over the lake. My phone didn’t sit comfortably in the pocket of pants I was wearing when sitting, so I’d taken my phone out of my pocket. Then a guy came and sat behind me then started talking at my back - he wanted to have a conversation and also wasn’t listening to much of anything I was saying - “him: where are you from? - me: I drove down from Seattle - him: Chicago! I love Chicago! - me: No, Seatt… him: have you ever been to X (place in Chicago)” lol, then he started venting to me about how some volunteers hadn’t shown up to their shift, blah blah. I humored him for a bit, validating his venting - “yeah, that is shitty that they didn’t show up for their shifts. Yeah, the staff definitely puts in a lot of work to put the festival on. You guys work really hard, I see it, and I really appreciate it.” Seemed like he needed to be heard… and simultaneously wasn’t listening to me. Doing emotional labor for an inebriated stranger wasn’t really what I wanted out of the last 15 mins of the last set of the festival, haha, so after declining his offer for a bump of coke, I kindly exfiltrated myself to go back up into the good vibes, dance a bit and, be part of the collective closure of the last 72 hours of music and dancing and good times.
That’s all a round about way to get to this bit - about 20 feet after walking away, I realized that I’d left my phone just sitting on the grass there by that dude! I hopped back and picked it up and all was well. Now, looking back though, I’m thinking “oh no, did I leave my wallet sitting on the grass by that dude there and just walk away from it at the festival?” The wallet seemed nowhere to be found in the van. Luckily, I had a decent amount of cash with me as a backup but it’d still be a nightmare if I’d lost my cards, ID, etc.
Finally, after finally resigning myself to the looming disaster of the lost wallet, I checked the pocket of a pair of shorts that I didn’t think I’d worn and there it was! Whew! What a relief. I sat back in the van and just stared at the ceiling for a minute, sighing in relief and chuckling to myself. I’d worn the shorts for like 5 minutes total on the trip before deciding they were too warm and then my wallet lived in that abandoned pocket for the entirety of the festival. What a strange and different experience my wallet had that weekend than I did.
Wallet now in hand, I made my way out of Joshua Tree National Park and, true to my word, paid on exit. The same guy who waved me through yesterday was there and seemed confused that I was asking to pay on the way out - he must’ve forgotten about his little kindness the day before.
Overall, I loved the park. A beautiful and unique environment. It was quiet, scenic, and a nice relaxing spot to stop, decompress, and think back on all the little memories of the festival.