Keep losing my mind looking for the peace that I'll never find

* * *

So. Yesterday I woke up and decided I wanted to go hiking, but that since I had lots to do, it would have to be a quick one. So I chose Bow Willow Canyon - 7.6 miles, mostly flat, an easy two-hour jaunt through the desert. You know, it'd be enough to get some fresh air and sunshine, but I'd still be home in the afternoon to get "real life" things done. Oh, how unpredictable days like this can be. As you'll see, what started off as plans for a relaxing stroll through a canyon turned into an all-day trek over mountains and through cactus groves and almost into Mexico before I realized that what looks like east in the summer is south in the winter. Oh, those conniving sun angles.

Anyway. Here's where I started, at the mouth of this wash (which I'm not even sure was Bow Willow after all...). It was wide and sandy - almost like walking through beach sand the way your feet sunk in.

And, truth be told, although it was pretty here, and the sky was blue and the breeze was wonderful, it (as it started out here, anyway) wasn't my favorite Anza-Borrego hike so far, if only because it was fairly monotonous throughout. See how bleached-out everything looks? It might be this time of year, though; mid-morning in the middle of November isn't probably the most colorful time to be in the desert.

But obviously it had its moments. When you got further into the canyon, the colors contrasted a little more and it started to resemble the desert I know and love. (You know, the one with colors...)

There was all this mangled brush - you had to do a bit of navigating in spots, and I was constantly worried I'd stumble into a snake. Surprisingly, I didn't see a single one the entire day.


The wash, obviously, went on like this for a while - sort of uneventful but taking some surprisingly subtle but crucial changes in direction. Which is what I blame for what happened next.

And this is what happened next. See these cacti? Across that field is a low saddle that looked like it might head toward something more interesting than where I was. And that looked like it might head toward the west, which in my twisted logic was an easy way to make a loop hike out of an out-and-back hike. Besides, like I tell people all the time, "you can't get lost in the desert. You can see everything in the desert; it's impossible to get lost in the desert. It just doesn't happen."

So... over the cacti and through the brush, to a cooler location we go.

This is the saddle I was headed toward. See? Much more interesting than where I was headed, right? And I'm thinking to myself, "I was headed south, this will take me west so I can loop back onto the trail I was on. I'll just cross-country it, because I'm sure I'll be able to see where I need to be; it's the desert, after all. You can't get lost in the desert."

See? This is what kept me going. More interesting stuff. Look at this - it's like sticks... with... leaves. I don't know; maybe it was heat exhaustion that made it seem awesome at the time.

More cacti. This is about the time where one of them attacked me. And before you laugh, read this. It's true - these buggers suck onto you if you so much as brush them. In fact, I thought I'd been bit by a snake, because the first one (of many) that got me made this weird "thwap" noise as it embedded itself into my Achilles tendon. I totally froze for a second, convinced I'd been rattlesnaked and would die a slow, painful death in the middle of the desert.

When I looked down, it was this, stuck straight into that soft spot of my heel between the bone and the tendon. Not awesome. And to think - I was wearing thick socks, hiking boots, and pants - I can't imagine if I'd been wearing my trail runners or shorts at the moment. Luckily, I always carry two or three bandannas, and I used one to make a loop around the thing and pull it out. No easy task - and I still have bruises from where the barbs got pulled out. Oh, and just for the record? That's bigger than my size-9, gigantic hiking boot. It's big. And sharp.

But it was worth it when I got to the top, because look. See down at the base of that far hill? That's where I'd been before I decided to trek across the mountain. And I hadn't had nearly as good a view from down there as I did from up here. And look at the sky! How blue is that?

Here's the view toward where I was headed. I suppose my first hint that something was about to go very, very awry was the fact that those mountains looked nothing like the ones I'd been in. In fact, I later realized I was heading into an entirely different mountain range: the Coyote Mountains. Yeah. They go into Mexico. Why I didn't pay attention to this little detail at the time, I may never know.

On the way out (or what I thought was "out" but turned out to be "away from where I thought I was going"), I did see some cool sights. Like these bighorn sheep! I couldn't believe how close I was before they ran! There were probably 25 or so - this mom and two babies got separated from the rest of the herd and just sort of kept an eye on me while I walked by.

And this was part of the rest of the herd. If you can ignore my nonexistent photography skills, you can (sort of) see them at the bottom of the photo. I was actually surprised at how small they were - I hadn't seen them since I was a kid, and they seemed much bigger then.

And then. For the next, I don't know, ten miles, I've got no pictures but this one. Why? Because I pulled a rookie hiker move and got completely, retardedly, insanely, I-thought-irretrievably lost. Because my internal navigation system is, well, nonexistent, and because I didn't have a compass or anything but a sketched-out map, and because the winter sun angles are much more unreliable than the summer angles, I ended up going this way instead of that, and then that way instead of this. Sigh.

So I trekked down one canyon, into another canyon, turned around and hiked back up the second canyon (which, now, I think may have been Carrizo Gorge), up a hill, back down a hill and then up another hill because the first wasn't high enough to see over the second, down a hill, down two more hills (how that happened, I still don't know), past a long-abandoned truck, and...well, you understand. I was lost. After a while, I took off my hiking boots, put on my trail runners (why I had them in my pack, I still don't quite know, but I'm not going to look that gift horse in the mouth) and literally ran across these hillsides.

And look - there was even water. You can't see it but this sign says "AGUA/WATER" and in that box are about six sealed jugs of drinking water. So I filled my Camelbak and trekked some more. At this point, I'm really not sure which direction I was headed. But I had water and sunscreen, so I was prepared for (almost) anything.

Oh yes, it was an adventure, all right. After too many more cholla encounters to count, and after bruising myself repeatedly while scrambling over rocky hillsides, and after narrowly missing a concussion but not whiplash sliding halfway down a hill...well, I made it to S-2, which was the road I'd originally turned off of to get to the road that took me to my trailhead. Unfortunately, I was about a mile and a half from where I'd gotten off that road. So I walked on the shoulder of the road for a while, came to the dirt road that took me to the trailhead, and have never been more relieved to have "only" 2.4 miles left to where I needed to be. See that narrow road in the distance? That's what I was headed on.

And don't worry, Mom. I yelled at myself for you, so you don't have to do it: "This is why you don't hike alone. This is why you tell someone where you'll be. This is why you don't just go off bushwhacking when you don't know the area." But look at it this way: at least you raised a tough broad for a daughter! Sure, a disobedient tough broad...but still! You should be proud!

Yeah, I've never been so happy to get to my car in my life. Because after six hours that should've been two, five cactus-attacks that should've been none, 16 miles that should've been less than half that, and sunscreen in my eyes and dirt on every inch of my body and a sunburn in the middle of November, I was beyond ready for a shower and a stiff drink.

And just in time, too. The second my car came into sight, it started to rain. So, you know, things could've been worse - I could've been caught in a flash flood. And besides, look at all the things I would've missed if I'd stayed on that boring first trail! No bighorn sheep, no jackrabbits, none of this scenery:


So I'll be back. Oh, I will be back. Next time, though, with a GPS. Or at least a map and compass and some brushed-up navigation skills!

* * *

Someone's Daughter

I wanna sit and talk and laugh with you as the ends,
I wanna see your smiling face before the new begins,
You never know what it means to see the sunlight in your
hair and dancing everywhere.

I wanna shout about it,
But I keep quiet about it,
I wanna laugh about it,
But I don't joke about,
Wanna live without it,
But I can't do without it.

I'm someone's daughter,
An' your somebody's son,
Can I ease your pain 'til the morning comes,
I'm no one's daughter
I belong to the sun,
Gonna ease your pain 'til the morning comes.

Keep looking for the reason high and low to let it go,
Keep losing my mind looking for the peace that I'll never find,
I wanna know what it feels like to be the sunlight in your hair and dancing everywhere.

I wanna shout about it,
But I keep quiet about it,
I wanna laugh about it,
But I don't joke about,
Wanna live without it,
But I can't do without it.

I'm someone's daughter,
An' your somebody's son,
Can I ease your pain 'til the morning comes,
I'm no one's daughter
I belong to the sun,
Gonna ease your pain 'til the morning comes