MOJAVE 2008

As Spring Break quickly approached, my students asked me what I was going to be doing. They assumed that I was, of course, going to visit my boyfriend in Alaska (a rumor that I'm having a difficult time shaking....ok, really I just let them believe it. It reduces the number of other unwelcome questions.) When I told them that I would be camping and hiking in the desert, it did nothing to dissuade their current opinion that I'm insane (buying an iPod helped, though). "Who camps in the desert?" they asked. Well, only the campiest of girls, it turns out.

Now, I'm going to preface this with the following disclaimer: Amy's blog of this trip is way better. She made a rockin' video montage set to our trip's theme song, Green Day's "Brain Stew (Godzilla Remix)" that is far superior to my blog.

Ashley, Amy, Alisa, and I drove in my little Corolla (after a near disaster trying to fit all our stuff into my trunk) down to the Mojave. We did the usual - we camped, ate food, hiked through canyons and to the tops of cliffs, spent 24 hours in the car (getting down there, going to Death Valley the 2nd day, the Mojave National Reserve the third, and getting home), and talked about amusing and intellectually stimulating things.

HIGHLIGHTS OF MOJAVE 2008, in no particular order. Keep in mind that this blog will be laced with inside jokes that will only make sense to those who were present.

1. Entering the town of Mojave and and selecting "Hilry's" for lunch before we headed to the campground. On the down side, and without going into details, the meal left me deeply uncomfortable, in a very physical, abdominal sense, for the rest of the evening. On the plus side, Hilry's offered a very thought-provoking menu, especially for an English teacher. It turns out that breakfast can also be spelled "breckfast," and that there are 4 different ways to spell "omelette." These were ideas that I had never been introduced to.

2. Arriving at the campground and spending at least half an hour selecting the perfect campsite - one that would be spacious, flat, fairly secluded, and that was far away from the other people there. After minutes of intense discussion and deliberating, and satisfied with our final choice, we took off to pay the camp fee and to explore the cliffs nearby. Little did we know that an hour later, when we returned, what had been the most secluded campsite would be invaded by at least 60 geology students from Sacramento who had come to map the canyon walls. We were suddenly surrounded by tents, and as we pulled up, we recalled the caravan of cars we had seen pulling in as we looked down from a cliff we had climbed. We were fairly infuriated, leading to all sorts of rude, under-our-breath comments and dirty looks as we pulled in. We also did not even consider offering parts of our enormous, way-too-big-for-our-group campsite for them to use. Here's a shot of the girls eyeing our unwelcome intruders: 3. "Map these rocks!" which may quite possibly be the first dirty joke I've ever made.

4. Seeing the Joshua tree for the first time, a cute little guy who covers the Mojave and apparently was named by the Mormons "because it looked like Joshua, from the Bible." Not really understanding, I later wiki'd it, and as it turns out, it's factual.

5. Alisa winning "Best Hair" (apparently for the second time since 2003). 6. Hours of iPod glory and "This American Life."

7. Rolling into Death Valley desperate for a gas station and joking that gas "would probably be, like, $5.00." It was.

8. Having a moment of silence after "some words" by Alisa for the already-dead lizard that I nearly trampled on. I was told by a friend that this funeral is what made it "a girl trip."

9. Going to Badwater Basin to see the "-282 level" that makes Death Valley so famous. For just a small moment in time, we were the lowest people in the country (literally, not figuratively).
10. Deciding that there was, in fact, no one campier than us. (By the way, I'm really glad that Alisa's Kleenex made it into this picture. The snot bag was a vital member of our trip.) 11. Questioning my own femininity. There are two factors in this:

First, being the big yellow monster in this jumping shot:

(How is it fair that Amy can look like a little pixie all the time, and I'm left with this shot of me completely dominating? I'm practically covering the entire sign.)

And second, listening to the "Testosterone" episode of "This American Life." We were thoroughly entertained by the rampant self-doubt and speculation among the show's producers as they prepared themselves for the results of a test to see who in the office had the most testosterone and who had the least. One woman was obviously very disturbed upon learning that she had won the women's competition, and this revelation led someone in our car to ponder who among us campers had the most of this very unwelcome hormone. The other girls were very nice to hem and haw for a minute or two, until I finally just raised my hand and said, "I'm pretty sure it's me," which was immediately followed by "Yah, I think so, too" and "Yah, I'd have to agree." It may be time to surprise my parents with another visit and rebuild my feminine self-image. Or maybe giggling and fawning over some guy would do the trick...

12. JUMPING PICTURES. This one is my favorite because I actually look sort of high, and not like such a man.

13. Jumping picture bloopers, of which there were several. Imagine the difficulties in achieving a satisfactory jumping picture - we had to get four girls to jump exactly when the camera's timer went off. This led to me sprinting back and forth between wherever we were posing and wherever we were setting my camera (usually my car), until we finally got a shot we liked. It was quite a workout, but well worth it.

14. And the reason for the trip, the scenery - which totally holds its own against any beautiful, lush, mountainy forests like the ones I was used to hiking in.

So after almost four days off in the desert, it was back to work Monday morning. Luckily, my job is fairly entertaining - Exhibit A: Conversation with Nichole, my T.A., who is almost 18 and somewhat intelligent (or so I had thought):

Nichole: I went hiking during Spring Break.

Ms. Snow: Oh, yah? Me, too.

Nichole: Yah? Where'd you go?

Ms. Snow: Camping down in the Mojave.

Nichole: You went all the way to AFRICA????

Ah, the future of America.