fete du test- day 1

When two things you haven't done before suddenly coincide you have no choice but to run toward that direction. Even if that direction is in the middle of nowhere.

My desert experience has been very limited, a drive through the Valley of Fire where I watched a sidewinder cross the road as we were coming toward it and a day were I shot a prison riffle w/ a bunch of republicans. (that thing can kick)

Living so close, an hour and a half, I felt the need to make that experience list be more than venomous snakes and assault riffles. I needed to touch a dry bed lake, be creeped out by windmills, see stars unobstructed by lights and hear gospel songs sung by people in handmade crocheted garments.

The answer to this yearning was High Desert Test Sites .

A and I climbed into the car and headed an hour an a half east armed with new music and sunscreen. We watched the landscapes become more alien. Fields of windmills and precariously stacked rocks that slowly revealed more rural places. I wondered what it is that people do out there. A said cook meth. I thought a bit more G rated, like get a lot of reading done.


We rolled into town in just enough time to grab a map and directory. They had gluten free fudge cookies available by donation-they must have known I was coming. We booked it, the two blocks to Art Queen gallery to catch the World Famous Crochet Museum Gospel Revival. And they revived and they sang and I felt the Lord and I felt a tremendous guilt for not crocheting more.

So feeling uncomfortable by the heat and my guilt, we moved on. We headed to Pioneer Town to have margaritas with friends at the famous Pappy and Harriets and it was filled to the brim with leather and bandanas. (and some shockingly white teeth) I guess the same weekend was a biker rally in Palm Springs. The drinks were strong and everyone was having a good time, it was jovial, but I was secretly was hoping a bar brawl was going to break out because I have always wanted to break a beer bottle over someone's head and string a sentence together that had expletives and scorned woman dialog in between the expletives, but alas, I can't do everything I have never done all at once.

Then we left, taking pictures along the way, speeding steadily towards one of the worst meals I had in 12 years.