The Desert in Bloom

The Desert in Bloom

uyguguygu   14.43   Comment  

We went out to Moab, Utah for the holiday weekend at the end of May. I have never been to Moab on an overcast, rainy weekend but this turned out to be the most visually dynamic trip I've ever taken out there. In contrast to the harsh, direct light that is typical of Moab in Spring, the clouds acted like a soft box and the colors of the red rock and wild blooms changed as the sky changed throughout the day.

We camped in the desert outside of Moab and arrived just in time for the sky to clear up for a brief moment. I saw the Milky Way splashed across the sky and a meteor shower sparkling and streaking above me until I couldn't keep my eyes open any more. The second day it rained like crazy, with all six of us hiding in a car during a torrential downpour with epic lightening strikes. Right before the rain shower I took a quick walk with my sister-in-law and we photographed everything we saw blooming. Finally, on the third day it was overcast and cleared up around the time we left. We got to see the clouds rise out of the canyons, hiding just the very tops of the mesas and rock formations, forming islands in the sky.

Finishing Twenty-Seven

Finishing Twenty-Seven

uyguguygu   19.54   Comment  

There is a ghost town in the desert. When they put the freeway through it didn't reach to this town so it died when the oil ran out. We take the back roads often through the desert and we know this ghost town well. 

Near this town there is a field of daises. It had taken me by surprise - we were driving along and all of a sudden we were surrounded by a field of white. I had never seen it in bloom like that so I asked JR to pull over and I hopped out into the field of daises. They were tough little buggers, those desert flowers. I had to pinch them hard with my fingernails to pull them up. 

We kept going and found a place to pull over and camp in the BLM land, right against the mesas, in a flat spot against the tumbled rocks. In the morning it was cold and a little overcast, and the wind was incredible. I woke up early before everyone else got up and walked a ways down the road, meditating on the last day of my 27th year.  

Its always hard for me to give up another year for some reason and I get a little melancholy around new years and birthdays. I'm not afraid of aging by any means, but I wonder a lot if I did a good enough job with the year that I'd been given. The desert is a good place to let those thoughts settle.