Joshua Tree

After the School ended, I went straight to Joshua Tree National Park, about 150 miles East of LA. It's a desert park, with no surface water anywhere at this time of year. I went to one of the two campgrounds that has water taps. This side of the park (the Western end) is part of the Mojave desert, and it's HOT at this time of year!

The reason I chose the desert was I wanted a quiet place to do the Work, and I wanted a striking environment. This really did the trick. I've posted some of my photos (http://picasaweb.google.ca/pbleduc/BuridanSJourney?authkey=Gv1sRgCIyL-ufv__LHdQ#) so you can see how it is here. I was able to do some nice hikes before 8:30 am and after 5 pm. The rest of the time, I lay in the shade under the Joshua trees. And I did the Work pretty much all day, with a bit of reading and occasional short forays into the blistering heat.

Surprisingly there's a lot of life in the desert. The most common birds I saw were cactus wrens, crows, Western Scrub Jays and some others I couldn't identify, and one hummingbird. Lots of squirrels, two foxes, one giant tarantula, one big desert tortoise (footlong shell) which crawled up to me on its way to god knows where. I was hoping to see a rattle snake but no such luck. Lots of vegetation too, surprisingly. By the way, the Joshua Tree looks like a tree at the bottom and Dr. Seuss on top. It's actually not a tree at all but a type of yucca.