Joshua Tree National Park

Posted by Robert on the 17th of October, 2006 at 10:35 PM GMT0. Permalink.
Tags: California, Joshua Tree National Park, Personal, Vacation

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When I posted this, I was listening to: All-American Rejects - Swing Swing

I went to Joshua Tree National Park over the weekend to camp with my parents. While nothing really eventful happened, I have a few thins to say.

Joshua Tree National Park is about three hours away from where I live. I had planned to meet my parents at McGrath State Beach, but their camp ground was full. I'd wanted to visit Joshua Tree for awhile, but I never got around to it.

I drove out Friday. After I got there, I ate, chatted with my parents, then went to sleep.

Saturday, I got up early and found my parents outside talking to some folks. My mom had gone on a nature walk and told me about the stuff she saw. We set out to find a tarantula burrow, but had little luck.

We did find, however, the Pinacate Beetles, or stinkbug. If you agitate the bug, it does a handstand and emits an odor, undetectable to my nose. It is such a dramatic pose. I wanted to take one home.

We eventually went for a drive through the park and reminisced on the first time we had gone to the park. We visited several sites, none of which have names that I remember. After, we grabbed food, made a fire, chatted some more, and went to sleep.

Sunday, we went for a 6 mile hike to the top of some peak in the mountains. While the view was nice, I don't think the walk was worth it. I headed home around 3 PM after saying goodbye to my parents.

The real thing I wanted to say about the trip had to do with one of the sites. There was a particular place with a nice view of the valley below. There were signs up that were basically saying humans are infiltrating the desert. I don't remember the exact wording, but it was really chastising people for living there.

I feel like I'm an environmentalist. I'm at least concerned. I think there is a fatal flaw in many environmentalist's thinking. Humans are part of the ecosystem. I always get the impression that environmentalist want to remove humans from the picture. But they can't. We are part of the environment.

So, while I think because we are causing the problem and we ought to be more responsible, bitching because we are populating the desert is stupid. If it were a city of tipis in the desert, would the state park still bitch? If they were log cabins? Where is the line drawn?

The fact that we are building these cities and our populations are growing is a monument to reaching a very high intellect. Any other animal that reach our level would end up doing the same thing if they could. While we ought to be responsible and not fuck everything up for everyone, we need some leniency because what we are doing is a natural progression of being on top.

Anyway, this is just a sort of jumble of thoughts I didn't care to formulate very well but thought someone might want to ponder for a few minutes.

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