The Desk Is Out There

After an amazing trip across the United States, seeing some pretty incredible landscapes, parks, and places along the way, the night before reaching Joshua Tree brought another first: camping on BLM land.

That stop was at the DW Ranch Road dispersed camping area off Blake Ranch Road, east of Kingman, Arizona.

Finding the spot was an adventure all by itself. While backing up, I turned too sharply and managed to break a taillight and bend the pin used to raise and lower the trailer jack.

Another lesson learned.

After reading through the MDC forums, it turns out I’m definitely not the first person to do this. A good number of people have either replaced or extended their tongue so there is a little more room between the truck and trailer when making tight turns.

I already ordered the replacement part for the jack, and I’m about to order a new taillight too. I’ll have everything shipped home, pick it up when I head back on October 15th for a couple of days, then bring it back with me and fix everything while I’m out here.

After setting up the camper, I took my time getting settled, pulled up my chair, and just started surfing the web for about 30 minutes. A little YouTube, catching up on email, checking the weather, just relaxing.

Then I looked up.

There was a snake about five feet away from me, just laying there in the sun relaxing.

I hate snakes.

So I got up, went inside for a little bit, and then decided, you know what, I’ve got to conquer my fears. I went back outside, found another place to sit around the camper—not another campsite, just another spot around the camper—made dinner, and ended up having a great night’s sleep.

The next day, I packed up and moved on to Joshua Tree.

But after all of that, I finally made it to Joshua Tree.

And finally, The Desk Is Out There.

For the last two days, the desk has literally been outside.

And it is exactly what I hoped it would be.

Working out here is relaxing. It’s easy to concentrate. Meetings have been great. The internet has been fantastic. And somehow, sitting outside in the middle of all of this makes a normal workday feel completely different.

The stress level has come down tremendously.

It’s just a really cool way to work.

Two days here. Two days with the desk outside. And so far, it has been an absolute blast.

My friend arrives today and should be here in a couple of hours. Tomorrow he’s going to head out for a good walk while I finish my last workday from here.

Then Thursday and Friday are mine.

We’ll head into Joshua Tree, do some walking, explore, hang out, and catch up.