I like a little variety every now and then.

After a week in the slabs, we were starting to fall victim to the ennui that sometimes permeates that place. So we packed up and headed further into the desert, along the edge of a bombing range.

These are the signs warning you that if you continue, you very well may be blown to little bits. Helpful, yes?

We lived for a few days in the wilderness before traveling on through the desert and eventually meeting up with I-10. Here, a very important decision was made. If we turned left, we would go back to LA. If we went right, we could go to Las Vegas.  

I don't have any pictures of Vegas. Suffice to say, it was one of the most beautiful and puerile places I've ever been, and I adore it. I want to roll around in it, get it all over me, and fall asleep snuggled up in it, inhaling its scent. Ah, Las Vegas, you have ruined me.

Then it was back to the desert, Death Valley this time. We wandered all over the valley floor and backpacked in the Funeral Mountains. And I am not even a little dead. Take that, menacingly named places!

Earlier this day, I had reacted with dismissive derision to a comment of Hunter's. Something about how everything has a spirit, even rocks. Here, he sings a long, dramatic and heartfelt song about rocks while studiously ignoring me.

We hiked up a rocky canyon to the ruins of Hungry Bill's Ranch. There are old stone walls and 100 year old fruit trees up there. Also, once we began getting up into the mountains, there are springs and even snow on the ground. Not how you would imagine death Valley at all.









But this was a little more like it:

After we got back to Los Angeles, we were still shaking sand out of our clothes and hair for days.