Did I mention it was cold? Up this morning, first on the agenda was a shower. I felt dirty. I got some water boiling and did some rearrangement in the van until it was ready. I proceeded to spill most of the water on the ground attempting to get it into the solar shower bag before I fished my funnel out to do it properly. This meant my shower was only luke warm. This time I tried rigging the shower bag up into a tree. Despite the free-hanging nature of the bag, it still came out as a trickle, even when I abandoned the shower head for the tap. I thiknk I just have to come to terms with the fact that it is a useless piece of shit. Anyway, it was a very quick shower, but it made me feel clean. I got dressed quick smart, but by the time I’d gotten back to the van, I couldn’t feel my hands or feet. I was desperate for warmth so I dug out Big Buddy (a portable gas heater that runs of propane bottles) and got him going. I sat in front of him until feeling agonisingly returned to my extremities. With that charade over, I made bacon and eggs for breakfast, wanting to warm my body from the inside. The sun helped to warm me also, but the wind was picking up a little. I was having doubts that I could be able to survive the cold up north if I was struggling this much.

Because of all the morning processes, I was on the road quite late, but I was happy to be driving with the sun well and truly up. I slowly descended Big Bear mountain through windy roads, with views of a vast desert dotted with boulders appearing before me. Lucerne Valley at the base of the hill is very much a desert town. Very spread out and only dirt roads running dead straight off the main highway. It baffled me why anyone would want to live out here. There was a big hill-cut quarry on the way down the hill so I suppose that’s a major industry.

Continuing along the highway towards Joshua Tree was more desert, including a boute of roadworks to slow things down. Joshua trees started appearing, dotted here and there amongst the desert brush. I listened to the second season of the Serial podcast as I drove. When I got into Yuvcca Valley, I discovered that it had a Walmart, so decided it was a big enough town to do some errands. I spoke to Alex as I shopped, he’d just returned to California for a work visit from Germany and it looked like we probably wouldn’t run into each other, would have to wait until Christmas, which honestly isn’t that far away.

At Walmart, I bought two propane bottles, a carbon monoxide sensor (happy Derek?) and some ham and cheese. I forgot to buy a pair of sandals that I so desperately need since I’m lacking a pair of hands-free slip on shoes for bathroom and shower situations. Checking my underwear stock, I discovered I was in need of doing some laundry so I drove back through town to get that done. I found a landromat easy enough and put a load in one of the few working washing machines, which cost $1.75 in quarters. Lucky I had change! While that was going, I went back to the van and sat in my comfy chair to finish off my US visa application. I didn’t get far into it when someone came up to me, complementing me on my van. His name was Philip, a film maker based near San Diego who had a friend considering the nomadic lifestyle. We got chatting and I told him some of my story. He was out in Yucca shooting for the next month, he mainly does filming for commercials, but also story-style stuff similar to Australia Story, where he learns about a person or certain group of people. We exchanged information so I could share my blog with him and he his website with me. He asked if I was staying around the area because he was keen to interview me and make a film out of it! Unfortunately the timing wouldn’t work, but I was flattered at the offer, to think my story would be worth something! By the time we’d done chatting my washing was well and truly finished.

Back in the Laundromat, I soon discovered that there was only one working dryer (of the dozens along the wall). Tommy and Dave were using the only one available, but they sent me down the street to another Laundromat much better than this one (they were restricted to the crappy one because they didn’t have a car). As I unloaded my washing into my bag, they asked me about Australia, Tommy because he was intending to go on holiday there with his wife. He was very concerned that there should be good pool shooting contests there because he was a professional and sought a challenge. He told me that the most recent world champion was Austrlian and he reckoned he could give him a run for his money! Lovely guys, they said I had a beautiful accent. A bit down the road, I found the better Laundromat and shoved my stuff in a dryer (50 cents for about half an hour). I sat in the Laundromat on my computer finishing off the visa application. While doing so, Anne, a fellow laundromater asked if that was my apartment parked outside. I confirmed it was and so more chatting! She was a local who had moved out here from the LA coast, but I couldn’t quite figure out why, maybe for a man. Her daughter had just moved to another town and was considering getting into climbing and was also interested in travelling. I encouraged her to do both, as long as she had a SPOT tracker and Anne seemed pleased. Even when my drying had finished, I stayed put until my visa application was finished. By the end of it, I’d paid my $160 fee and had an appointment scheduled at the US consulate in Frankfurt for December 14^th, a few days after I would arrive there. I was happy to get that out of the way!

It was now 2pm, so it was definitely time to get on to Joshua Tree. The visitor’s centre was just outside the entrance to the park so I pulled in and a very helpful lady told me that the Hidden Valley campground is where all the climbers hang out and that I shouldn’t have any trouble getting a campsite. As soon as I entered the park a few miles down the road, the density of Joshua Trees increased ten-fold. They stretched as far as the eye could see until large boulders got in the way. Funny looking things, constantly shedding their lower foliage and extending their arms in every which way like the arms don’t like one another and are seeking their own path to freedom. I enjoyed the views as I drove through the one road through the park. It definitely felt like a desert. The sun was out and it was quite windy, but thankfully had warmed up since this morning.

I stopped at a few places to take photos, but the scenery was largely the same without many contours, but different rock formations at every turn. At Quail Springs I saw climbers so pulled over immediately to say hi. They were in a group of three so even better, could be potential climbing partners. Turns out they weren’t, they were a couple on a guided tour, so the third wheel was their climbing guide. No matter, I spent a few minutes talking to Harris, who was the boyfriend of the couple and a New Zealander on holiday throughout the US. His girlfriend was distracted by the talking, being on her first climb ever, so I left them to it.

Not much further on was Hidden Valley. Here the climbers were in abundance. There was a colourful jacket astride a peak or on a cliff face everywhere I looked. I went straight into the campsite to find it was marked as “full”. Oh dear. I saw a girl heading towards the fee box so I stopped and asked her if she’d found a site, which she had, but was pretty sure it was the last one. No worries, I drove through the park looking for a group with only one car so I could crash their carpark. I stopped and asked a few people, but most of the campsites were empty of people because everyone was still out climbing. Without success, I checked the notice board for anyone wanting to share a site, but most of the notes were out of date and unhelpful. I would have to wait a few hours until more people were back at camp to find camp buddies. On another note, the campsite is beautiful and definitely a climber’s community, with routes right at the sites.

In the mean time, it was nearly 4pm, so I was way past due for lunch. I made a wrap, made a second peruse of the noticeboards (which was fruitless, but entertaining) then resolved to walk the campsite and see if I had any better luck finding buddies on foot. I found friends at the very first campsite. They were a couple in a Sprinter van (these things are popular) and it was nice. I said as much as I walked up to them and within minutes they’d offered me the spot next to theirs, which I was very grateful to accept. I sat with them at the picnic table as they had pre-dinner snacks. Kathi and Shannon had been to Joshua Tree many times and were seasoned climbers, they were early retirees at just over fifty. They lived on the east coast and had taken a month to get to here, with San Diego their last stop. We talked vans for a bit, then I went off to wander around the boulders since it was still very much light out. Shannon advised that I would be able to walk to the top of Cyclops boulder, which was behind us, to enjoy the view. He was right, the scramble the top of this rock was easy enough and I could see the outstretched valley with all of its golden boulders and Joshua Trees in the bright, white afternoon sun. I scrambled down, the rock is sand-like and very grippy, would be a dream to climb on.

I walked around the base of a few more boulders that are within meters of the campground before crossing the road to the Hidden Valley picnic area. There was a 1 mile nature walk which I went on and discovered why it was called Hidden Valley (everything so far had been pretty obvious and easy to find). After walking through a narrow gap amongst a few boulders, there was a stadium of rocks towering around a low desert clearing. It was beautiful. Along the walk, I admired the different desert plants, stopped to watch a few climbers getting in one last route for the day. Most of the climbing here is trad (which means traditional, which means placing your own gear in the rock to stop you from falling) so there are no bolts in the walls, it looks el natural. The sun turned from white to yellow to orange as it set behind the distance rocky outcrop, setting the nearby cliffs ablaze with orange and even red. By the time I exited the trail, only the glow of the sun was still visible.

With the disappearing sun, so too went the warmth from the day and the wind picked up. It was nearly 6pm by the time I got back to camp looking for lots of extra clothes. I layered up, remembering the pain of cold from this morning and folded my still-warm laundry and packed it away. By the time I was done, the sky was aglow with beautiful blue and purple twilight colours and the cliffs had turned yellow, just as a few stars started to show themselves. I joined Shannon and Kathi at the fire Shannon had just started. They’d got here a few days earlier so had pilfered a bunch of firewood from empty campsites to add to their collection, it was welcome warmth. Shannon even offered me one of those tiny 3-legged folding stools to sit on, which I was happy to accept. We discovered that we were all engineers and they were semi-retired, only working when they really wanted to. I discovered that they’d fitted out their van themselves, despite it looking like a professional job. I was super impressed. It seems they had thought of everything (typical engineers). I couldn’t believe they’d put all that work in and weren’t living in it full time.

After the sun had well and truly gone down, a lady from our neighbouring campsite came over and asked if she could buy some branches for their fire. Instead we invited her to sit with us. Sophia went back to her camp and returned a few minutes later with her husband Clements. Their 1 year old son Johan had just been put to bed. They offered us some white wine in payment for the warmth of the fire which Kathi and I enjoyed, me drinking it out of one of Kathi’s cups. Sophia and Clements were German, travelling through the US to visiti Sophia’s sister in San Francisco and her mother in Florida. I discovered that Florida is the state that everyone retires to because it is warmer and there is no income tax. We talked about a whole lot of things from the Brit-exit vote, visas in the US (always a hot topic), the election and more van-stuff. Sophia and Celments retired early, ready for their early morning wake up from Johan and the smoke eventually got to the rest of us and we turned in. But not before a quick tour of Kathi and Shannon’s van!

It was even more impressive up close. The entire interior was lined with wood with cabinets, drawers, even the ceiling. They had a bar fridge and a 12V fridge like mine operating as a freezer. A small wash sink with a shower head attached, of course a swivelling passenger seat and a bed that went across the back of the bed. Their kitchen was equipped with not only a microwave, but a toaster oven and bench space more than most San Francisco apartments. They even had room for a small bench seat by the bed and a heater that runs off diesel from the car’s tank. They had four 100W solar panels powering the whole thing. It was definitely the luxury version of van life.

I was happy to reheat leftovers for dinner being thoroughly starving, even had toast to top me up, then yoghurt and banana for dessert. With all my layers on and wearing gloves I was warm enough and without a cold shower planned for tomorrow, hopefully I will stay that way for the next few days!