Time to go back to the desert -- this time to the Mojave National Preserve. Our previous visit here was in the summer, so we naturally spent move time at higher elevations and in shady caves, leaving me feeling like I had unfinished business with the desert floor. I had especially wanted to poke around the Kelso Dunes, which we seemed to catch glimpses of from different angles wherever we went. This trip, it wasn't so hot, so I directed Chad to head for the dunes.
Camping is allowed near the dunes, and we got lucky enough to score a spot under the only big tree for miles. We had first set up somewhere else, but by the time we were ready to go on our hike, the people previously parked under the tree were gone, so I ran over and guarded it menacingly until Chad moved the van.
After securing our spot for the right, we headed out on foot to see how far up the nearest dune we could get before the light started running out. Hiking in sand is slow going and hard work!
As usual, we liked the big views. But what is this? Something small to look at too?
Footprints! The late afternoon light revealed the marks of many, many small feeties in the sand.
Hoofed prints, many-toed prints, squiggly prints, little stick prints. Imagining who made the many prints, and wondering where they were all hiking, kept us amused as we slogged up the dune.
We made people prints,
and admired shadows in the sand.
The nearby mountains weren't bad either.
On the way back down. Chad noticed that his shoes seemed oddly full. His boots, while highly breathable, also let in a lot of sand. The amount of sand he poured out when we were done was seemingly more than the volume of his foot. After dumping them out, he tucked the boots carefully under the van.
Back at camp, we noticed a beetle investigating a broccoli stem left behind by a previous camper, and after watching it walk across the sand, decided that the some of the small linear footprints we saw earlier must have been beetle tracks. I would not have guessed that had we not had a handy beetle to observe..
Cooking dinner in the waning light once again. This happens often when the sun sets at 4:30.
The sunset was gentle, and the color palette of the dunes constantly shifted until the light disappeared entirely and the thinnest of crescent moons came up.
Back to Chad's boots. When we got up the next morning, there was only one boot sitting under the van, where there had been a pair when we had gone to bed. Hmmm... Did it walk off? What do we do? After looking around, we we spotted it sitting in the dirt about 30 feet away. Missing most of its shoelace. Apparently one of the footprint-making critters thought the boot smelled yummy, dragged it off, and chawed off the lace! The broccoli stem was still there, so we added it to our collection of trash.
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