fete du test-day 2

I woke up in Desert Hot Springs, I slipped into my swimsuit and left A in the room to sleep. I swam, in the small way I know how to swim, dipped in the medium hot and super hot, mineral springs. And I sat there head back contemplating life's most recent events, a hairy backed man strikes up a conversation in broken English about how loud he finds Mexican people now that the pools population has suddenly swung south of the border. He wanted to know if I were American, which I guess is the burning question on most people's minds. His friend joined him and we began having a broken conversation, they are from LA and before I get asked questions on where I live and would I like to possibly go dancing or out to dinner, I feign how hot the pool is. They are very disappointed that I am checking out of the hotel and want to know where I am going.

There is something that Eastern European and homeless men find insanely irresistible about me.

Where I am going is back to Joshua Tree and the Test to experience performance art and see a man made crater. Our first stop is to replace the map we lost and stock up on waters. Our second stop was a dry bed lake after all to see a dance with ribbons.

That goes a little something like this:











The desert is such a monochromatic place, but it is amazing in its monochromaticness. It was however nice to see it broken up with color, even if it was an hour, once a year. I think colors become more brilliant there, like they like to show off.

Next stop was the Yucca Crater installation that was, for lack of a better term, in the most beautiful middle of nowhere. That made me shout "praise the Lord for the GPS, and the 4G and the smart phone." sorry, still riding on the gospel high.

It ended up being a very surprising installation. It ended up being an oasis for you to swim in, unfortunately for us there were too many bodies.

Even though I didn't get to experience test as much as I wanted, a conundrum of time and space, I did get the chance to take a lot of great photos. The desert seems to want to be the star of the show.

I will definitely be at Test next year and this trip was a very good HDTS 101 for me. I will have more of a strategy instead of the zen like tumbleweed I was this year.