The magic of the desert
The story of one of my top three experiences in nature
I’m a desert rat. I spend a lot of time in the desert. There’s something about the vast openness, the heat, the colors, and the perceived desolation among abundant life that keeps me coming back.
I’m lucky to live in America — home to some of the world’s most incredible deserts. The Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan deserts each carve out a simple existence across the west.
When I think about the most impactful experiences I’ve had in nature, almost all of them are in the desert. When someone asks me, “what’s the coolest thing you’ve ever seen in nature?” I have three desert stories that quickly bubble up above the rest.
The first was the Great American Solar Eclipse in Wyoming in August, 2017. Totality is indescribable, but I’ll try to transform those feelings into words in a later post.
The second one was a voyage of discovery into the unknown and unexpected. It was the topic of one of my first Medium posts.
Today, I’m going to tell you about the third — yet another unexpected experience in the desert. A once in a lifetime viewing of something I didn’t even know was possible until it happened.
It was June of 2014. After living in California for the last decade and completing my undergraduate degree, I was headed east to Colorado. I was moving to Fort Collins to pursue a graduate degree in ecology and embark on my next academic adventure. I was ready to get my hands dirty with soil and learn all the things.
But before I got there, my partner and I decided we needed to take advantage of the vast landscape of desert that lies between California and Colorado. We took a 10 day road trip across these deserts that started at our favorite spot — Death Valley, CA.
I could spend pages writing about Death Valley (and in fact I have), so suffice it say, it is the most spectacular landscape I can imagine. I always feel better when I am there. Even in 117ºF.
After Death Valley, we made our way to a lesser known, but equally beautiful Nevada State Park: Valley of Fire. The park is located just over an hour outside of Las Vegas, but you wouldn’t know it from it’s calm, undiscovered interior. It’s a small park, but it’s packed with red rock formations that twist across the horizon.
We arrived in the early evening with plenty of time to settle in before the sunset. We set up our camp on the edge of the campground in perfect view of a rock outcrop that formed the focus of our desert view for the evening.
Red rock, green plants, blue sky. That’s how I always describe Valley of Fire. The contrasting colors make for quite the visual treat.
Upon arrival, we took the natural next step: set up the camp chairs and cracked open a beer.
We sat, overlooking this quintessentially desert landscape, soaking up the heat of a long sunny day, cold beer in hand, ready to enjoy the evening.
What happened next was so unexpected, people still have a hard time believing me. I don’t blame them. I have a hard time believing it myself.
Straight ahead, perfectly positioned above our red rock, a meteor exploded into view.
A meteor. During the day.
We saw it break into the atmosphere and develop a long, sparkling tail. Then, just seconds later, it exploded into a confetti of colors. Blue, green, purple, red. Nature’s fireworks.
I’ve seen countless meteors at night, and they are always fun, but this one was unlike anything I could have imagined. We were screaming with simultaneous delight and confusion, looking at each other like “what just happened”. Until then, I didn’t know it was possible to see a meteor during the day.
Our celestial viewing gave me an instant, natural high. I was both in a dream-like state and buzzing with energy. I felt connected to nature in ways I have only experienced a few times since. It was a sign of great things to come.
The sight of the daytime meteor is burned into my memory. It is a moment in time I will never forget. I have such a clear view of it, that every time I remember that moment, I feel like I am there, seeing it all over again.
Sometimes you’re just in the right place at the right time.
For us, the desert is always the right place. We come back to the desert again and again. There’s something intuitive about visiting these landscapes. We rarely make plans to travel elsewhere and even when we decide to get out of our comfort zone, somehow we end up back in the desert. We’ve never been disappointed.
Intuition is a powerful thing — if it feels right, keep going.
We kept on with our intuition on that trip. We were buzzing with energy from our celestial experience for days after. The following day, we packed up and continued our trip east. We made it a fair way toward Utah and were getting close to the campground around 1pm — the hottest part of the day.
Climbing above 100ºF, the heat was unforgiving. We decided to kill some time and enjoy some air conditioning in a small casino in Virgin River, NV.
Within 5 minutes, I had won $1,000 on a slot machine.
The desert magic continued and we never looked back.
