May 7

The lizards scurry across the rocks like wind-up toys, they dive towards the shade of a bush and watch me as I pass them by on the trail. The air is furnace-hot and the charred skeletons of burnt Manzanita trees twist skyward like blackened sculptures. Each rock stares back at me from its source: the roaring belly of the earth's interior. The desert is a surreal and fantastic place, though difficult to endure with my northern blood. The ocotillos rise up from the floor, strange antennae 20 ft. tall leaning towards their god, the sun. Outside my tarp, a pack rat is working in his subterranean tunnel, pulling down plants by their roots and adding them to his nest. I watch the plants disappear into the ground. For a moment, the heat makes me hallucinate: the hunk of granite becomes a lizard, the juniper twig becomes a snake, the cactus begins walking towards me. I drink gross amounts of water just to keep walking. I wear a wide brim farmers hat to keep the sun out of my face. I rise before the sun, so that I can walk in the cool of the morning. I walk late into the evening to take advantage of the cool of the dusk.