271) Mojave National Preserve

I got off work early and decided to take off to Mojave National Preserve as quick as I could. I was lucky enough to arrive on a night that produced some good winds and rain. When I got up before sunrise I could see that it was still cloudy and damp- I was hoping this would be ideal for dynamic lighting for photos, and it was.

I started off early towards Kelso Dunes. Never having been there before and still dark, I could only make out silhouettes and outlines of major formations. I assumed I was looking at the outline of a large distant mountain line, but it was in fact the dunes. The trek up the largest dune gets steep... not quite vertical, steep. Progress going up is marked in inches, but going down lets you take strides 20 feet in length.

The beauty of the winds and rain from the night before is that they washed away any marking of people having been there before. I was the only one on the dunes the entire time I was there that morning, and only saw two other people pulling up as I was driving out. In the shot above if you look closely, you can see trail I made going up and back down the tallest dune. You may be able to tell how steep it is.

The Preserve features a fantastic Joshua Tree forest. I really love these forests, they are unlike anything else I have seen, and they only naturally occur in the Mojave Desert. There is something about their spacing, the fact that hardly nothing else their size grows with them and just how interesting they look that captivates me. You still know you are on Earth, but it seems more like the earth through Dr. Seuss' eyes.

This last shot was the most costly of the day for me. While trying to find a better angle I accidental squatted down on a large Prickly Pear cactus. The big thorns, although painful, are not the real problem when this happens. It is the hundreds of smaller thorns, almost hair like, that are the worst. The thorns detach when they are adequately stuck in something, and then it is up to whatever they are stuck in to remove them. I could pluck the big thorns out of my butt right through my pants, but it was the smaller ones that proved to be very difficult to get out. I don't think there was anybody else up there, but if there was they must have been in for a great comedy show- me, pants down, trying to pluck thorns out of my ass in a awkward and contorted position.