all points south

Due to arriving back in town with a bad bug, I never managed to write anything about the vacation I went on recently. I have, however, been finding myself telling people all about it, so clearly I should share it with y'all. As I mentioned before, The Boy and I had a whirlwind trip to the Mojave Desert, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles a few weeks back. First, we went out to the Mojave, where a friend of ours has a grant, more or less, to do some work out there with the National Parks Service. She was originally supposed to be on a dig, but plans changed after she was already out there and she's now doing surveying/mapping type stuff and just generally wandering around exploring and taking notes and pictures. Our friend picked us up at the Las Vegas airport around 7:30 that Tuesday night and we stopped and had dinner at a little Cuban restaurant on our way out of town. By out of town, I mean, out of civilization; we drove on the highway for about 35 minutes, passing some podunk little gambling spots, until we came to a random off ramp where we exited the highway and the paved road. The house where she's living is approximately 40 minutes off-road, down narrow little dirt pathways that really shouldn't be called "roads" as they are rocky and uneven and filled with both wet and dry gullies from earlier rains. By the time we got out there it was dark, and the only things lighting our way were our jumpy headlights and a partially full moon, which just barely illuminated the little rabbits darting back and forth in front of the car as we made our way into the preserve. Her house is on a piece of land that used to belong to a cattle rancher and there are boarded-up outbuildings surrounding the property. Creepy in the daytime, even creepier in the dark. The house doesn't have a phone line or internet access and cell phones don't work off of the paved roads. They have power, but only via a generator, which they turn off at night. All clocks have to be battery powered, as a result, and she only stocks non-perishables in the fridge.

--Intermission (ie: I'm at work and have to accomplish things for a little while). Will post more later.--