State #2 - Part #2!
Did you read Part 1?
Ready for sundown!
On the last blog entry, the sun was quickly going down as we set up Arlene in Joshua Tree National Park. Although it wasn't all that late, the moderate elevation (4400 feet above sea level) in the campsite and the ring of large rocks surrounding our particular spot meant that when the sun dropped below our ridgeline, it got pretty dark and chilly, and it got that way fast.
However, we were prepared! We added a few layers of clothes and stoked up the campfire, all while taking more pictures of the surrounding landscape (you're shocked! I know!).
That looks like a decent campfire progression!
Other campsite patrons, picking a rock for the sunset
It wouldn't be a Joshua Tree blog without a lens flare
Watching the rocks turn pink
You can see how I'm up on the ridge, still in the sun,
while Chris and our campsite are totally in shade.
It's like 4:30pm, by the way.
Eventually, the sun really disappeared:
Almost gone...
...and it disappeared!
The unofficial slogan of JTNP is "half the park is after dark," and they are NOT kidding around. The park is a designated dark sky area, so there's no street lights or other ambient light of any sort. Really, the only lights at our campsite were our campfire, our headlamps (when they were on - mainly while cooking and making trips into Arlene to 1) get more adult bevvies and 2) empty the adult bevvies in the loo), and the string of twinkle lights we (very loosely) wrapped around the Joshua tree hugging the nearby boulder.
Tons of folks have published blogs about astrophotography, and since I knew JTNP would be a great place to try it out, I read several of them and spent some time fiddling with the settings on our camera. While I had things set as well as they could be, I just don't think our little dude is up to the task.
Here's the best shot I got, at least from our first night:
Technically, there are stars in there.
By comparison, here's a shot from the NPS website:
Feel free to fall down the rabbit hole that occurs when you Google, "astrophotography in joshua tree." It's like for real bananas incredible. I mean, look at this shot:
After fiddling with the camera for a bit, I decided it wasn't worth it, and I just kicked my chair back into recline mode and enjoyed the view. I truly can't overstate how incredible the stars were - just billions of them in every direction, and you could even see the space dust of the Milky Way itself. Truly amazing.
Eventually, we decided some food should probably also be ingested (in addition to the bevvies), so it was time to break out the Camp Chef BBQ box and grill up some chicken sausages. We tossed up a quick salad to accompany our meal, and it was quite delicious.
That dark form on the right is Chris
Noms!
We sipped and stargazed for another few hours, listening to the "Joshua Tree - Chill" playlist I'd compiled at home (streaming it from my phone to Arlene's speakers) and singing along with the hits (FYI - they were all bangers, naturally). Eventually, we tuckered out, so we broke up the campfire and ensured it was safely winding its way down before retiring to Arlene. We quickly found out we should have closed the camper windows MUCH earlier in the evening, as it was freaking freezing in there; we booted up the heater, which quickly set off the CO detector, and we danced around our small space, running the vent fan while wildly flapping papers at the detector to get it to stop. I bet our neighbors loved us (all of this was happening before 9pm, so I can't imagine they were too bothered). We crawled in bed wearing most of our clothes and finally stopped shivering enough to fall asleep.
Just like the sun set early the prior night, dawn broke early, too, and around 6am, we were awake, watching the sun creep up over the eastern rocks.
"Is it still cold out there?"
(touches finger to window)
"Yes."
We laid in bed for awhile, until the call of nature eventually pushed us out of our warm confines and back into a bunch more clothes for the short trip to our restroom. Since we were up, we figured we'd start the campfire and get the hot drinks flowing!
Why is Chris crouching on a rock
to open the pack of wood?
Who knows - life is confusing before coffee.
What's that? It's time for a morning photo shoot? OKAY!
"Is the fire warm yet?"
Trying out different camera settings -
I think this one is called "soft flower" or something
equally apropos for an agave.
Repping all my Ragnar peeps
After taking a few dozen more pictures, it was time to make breakfast! Cue the breakfast burrito song (since we didn't have cell service, we sang this ourselves instead of listening to it - should have put that on my playlist)!
Burrito time!
We cleaned up breakfast and started to get ready for the first of our hikes of the day - to the famous Skull Rock! On future blogs, we, well, we do that, and we hike in other spots; SO MANY MORE PICTURES TO COME!
Later!
Amy
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