Notes from a desert road
We drove out on a Thursday with the plan of doing nothing in particular. The plan held up well. Most of the trip was two-lane highway, the kind where you can see a truck coming for five minutes before it passes.
The light in the desert is harsh until about an hour before sunset, and then it becomes generous very quickly. I learned to stop the car early, walk a few hundred meters off the road, and wait.
What surprised me most was the colour. From the car everything looks beige. On foot there are ochres, rusts, a faint green in the washes, and a sky that goes almost teal near the horizon.
Packing list that worked: two gallons of water per person per day, a wide hat, a paper map (no signal for most of the second day), and a small folding stool, which turned out to be the most useful thing I brought.