Joshua Tree weekend

Every few months Erik rallies the troops and insists we take off for a weekend excursion. Last weekend we went camping in Joshua Tree California. I have to admit I wasn't excited about spending time in the desert. I guess I'm just biased toward things that are green. However, I'm learning that dusty, prickly, and rocky can be beautiful too. See?

Erik and Sage climbed rocks:

While McKenna and I watched from below.

We explored caves:

and marveled at the alien landscape:


At night as the kids slept in the tent, Erik and I sat around the campfire (drank beer) and remembered camping excursions we've been on before - breaking down at the KOA in hicktown Florida, meeting Tibetan monks in the Redwoods, taking Koko to see fireworks at Mt. Rushmore on the 4th of July, getting lost in the dunes at Cape Hatteras, waking up to a Javelina outside our tent in Big Bend Texas and seeing 3 bears outside our tent in Yellowstone (edit - I mean Yosemite. After a while the trips start to blur together). Through it all, this radio has provided our soundtrack:

Our tent is still holding up too, though it seems to be getting smaller. Ten years ago we were getting ready to embark on our month-long trip "Out West" and back home to West Virginia. Who would've thunk that ten years later we'd be back on the west coast because we live here and that same tent would be housing our two sleeping kids. Time flies.

But staring into a fire never gets old.