Day 24-25 (6/19-6/20): Miles traveled: ~ 300

Location: various sites, ending at Twentynine Palms, CA

Science: quick air quality measurement at one random pull-off, an hour-long air quality measurement at 29 Palms Jiffy Lube, then several days of measurements from back yard of airbnb during height of heat dome

First stop: random pull-off, I think still in NV

When I got to Twentynine Palms, just across the NV/CA border and on the outskirts of Joshua Tree, I first noticed people WEARING MASKS, even in the oppressive heat. As in, wearing masks inside and outside -- as in acting like the COVID19 pandemic still did exist. Up until this point, ever since leaving NY, I had consistently found myself to be one of the very few people in a large radius wearing a mask. I am vaccinated, but felt that this was the responsible thing to do, given my travel. It may be that I just happened to go places where everyone was vaccinated......OR where no one was wearing masks to begin with.....? My creeping notion that the East and West Coasts of the US were the only areas actually taking the pandemic seriously pretty much solidified in Twentynine Palms. I am a midwesterner through and through (grew up in Southern Illinois), but this confirmation did not make me feel proud. 

The first thing I did in Twentynine Palms was mail home that 2nd huge package of extra stuff. I was nearing the point in the trip where I would pick up my youngest daughter, Rosie (she's 8), and I was still not seeing how I could fit her in the car with all of the other things I had somehow thought I needed for this trip. 

Anyway, I stuffed that box full and then dutifully covered that box with duct tape to be sure it did not disintegrate in the mail. The postal clerk was cranky about the size and weight of the box (weirdly similar to the treatment I got in the Chiefland, Florida post office with my first box -- why do post office workers want customers to feel bad for trying to use the postal service? never mind -- I am sure there is some clear political explanation here but I am trying to avoid political talk so moving on). On top of having issues with the size/weight (they both were just fine), she added, "Hopefully the heat doesn't completely undo all of that duct tape. Heat and duct tape do not mix well."

"Oh," I replied. "I did not know that -- should I redo the tape do you think?" She did not answer me. Maybe she didn't hear me because of my mask, but I also wondered if this was because she was just giving me a hard time and then maybe she'd be sure it didn't fall apart (and if it did would she retape it?), but I also was feeling pretty fatigued by the heat and frankly so sick of myself and the extra stuff I couldn't get the gumption to make her give the package back and let me retape it.....so I chanced it and left it to the wiles of the USPS and the Heat Dome.

Next, I got my oil changed at Jiffy Lube (second air quality stop, but forgot to take pictures) -- where they promptly informed me that I was driving the wrong car. In their system, my license plate was associated with a red 2010 Subaru Forester (the car I had before the Rav4 I drive now). "Man, I would get this figured out before you go any further," the 20 year-old Jiffy Luber said, his eyes wide. "You could go to jail for something like this." 

"No, no," I replied, trying to calm him down -- "it's just that I once came to Jiffy Lube years ago with another car with the same license plate. It's your system that needs updating."

He did not believe me. "But our system is hooked up with the DMV," he said. "You have illegal license plates."

Well, if we had been discussing my trailer (which I had detached and left on the other end of the parking lot), he would possibly have had a point??? But for a brief second I really started to freak out a little.

"Really? You are looking at DMV records now? Jiffy Lube is hooked into the police?" I blurted out, half incredulous and half thinking maybe I MIGHT be going to jail (or be stuck in the desert until I got this new wrinkle sorted out).

His supervisor overheard this and came over. "Are you kidding me, Tommy? We aren't hooked into the police database! It's just our records that are wrong -- edit the entry and let's get this guy's oil changed."

After the oil (and Jiffy Lube database entry) change I headed to the airbnb using Google -- and promptly found myself in the middle of a deserted desert field on a dirt road. Wrong address, it turned out, about 30 minutes from the actual house. 

Once I finally found the place, Bree was there with food and cold drinks. And, more importantly, I did not have to back the trailer up in any way, at least not right away.

Turns out, desert heaven = floating in a pool with a cold drink in 115 deg heat (which everyone else in the world already knows, but I somehow was just discovering). 

While enjoying the pool, Bree, who is originally from Reno, NV, admired the iconic desert backyard -- the colors of the fence, the cactus, the diverse plants -- they all added up to a very tasteful landscaping job, she said. 

"Really?" I tried to see the backyard through her eyes........but all I could see was dust, dirt, gravel, some chairs and some scrappy brightly colored things. "Bree, when you look at this backyard, does it really feel like a great backyard?"

She nodded, "It's gorgeous."

"Wow. Because what I see is dirt and desolation punctuated with bright colors."

"Midwesterner, through and through," she responded.

I realized our different perception of the same backyard was yet another lesson in ways that we all connect to place. My "home" was Southern Illinois and all of the glorious green forests and sandstone rocks and poison ivy that came with it. I can appreciate the beauty and uniqueness of places different from my own home place, but I may never truly feel connected to or comfortable in these other different places. While at first this bugged me because if I professed to be an environmentalist -- if I actually felt a connection to nature, shouldn't I feel connected to all nature? But maybe connection and comfort are different things, and having a "home" connection to a certain place or terrain or ecosystem type might just be OK. Maybe I did not need a globalized environmental connection -- maybe local was just fine.

I spent the next several days in deep contemplation about this while floating in the pool and sweating it out in the swamp coolered house.......actually, not really. Bree and I decided that there would be no talk of work or thinking of deep political or emotional things while we hung out -- actual relaxation was our goal (and neither of us are pre-wired to do such a thing, so actually relaxing took a bit of work and mindless Stephen King reading/listening). In the end, I think we did relax a bit, and getting to do some laundry and sleep in a real bed felt luxurious for sure. 

While I was glad to head out of the desert at the end of our visit (off to Kings Canyon to see the biggest Sequoias in the world!!!!!!!), I was truly sad to say good-bye to Bree, the pool, and even the sparse desert backyard.