We went for a drive last week. Lolli had spring break from teaching classes at the college so we invited our friends, Ed and Suzanne, along to show them some of our favorite spots, you know, Mojave, Pioneer Town, Indian Cove, Baghdad, Keeler, Bad Water, Tecopa, Panamint Valley, Cerro Gordo and Mono Lake. I'm not going to draw you a map showing exactly where we go but we usually camp wherever the VW bus gets stuck.

During one moon-less night, camped in the Panamint Valley, a mile or so from the highway; nothing but sage brush, salt flats and broad alluvial fans rising off into the dark around us, a jet fighter swept over "On the deck" as they say.

I have thought about that incident several times since. There we were sitting still, totally surrounded by a natural landscape millions of years old, while the guy in the jet was moving hundreds of miles per hour surrounded by the latest electronic guidance system for night flying. How different our ways of experiencing that desert valley. We, with our camp fire. He, with his electronic sensors.

What does it all mean?

I threw another log on the fire.

Overall we had quite a range of weather. First rain, then wind, then temperatures up to one hundred and five. Then snow, fog and finally, more rain. We climbed into abandoned mines and hiked to the top of volcanic cinder cones. We even soaked in hot springs. Yes indeed. It was quite the vacation. Ed and Suzanne loved it. We are thinking about doing it again next year.