On our last desert trip last weekend, we saw all three of those.  The heat was actually fairly mild.  And, obviously, since it's the desert, the snow wasn't much to speak of.  But it WAS SNOW!

...Sorry, I'm from California.  Snow is kind of unexpected most of the time.

We spent the night at church Wednesday night.  The party somehow broke up early (by that I mean late).  The alarms went off at 4:30 or something ridiculous.  We decided to sleep in another 30 minutes or so.  You'd think that since it was only a week ago, it'd be easy to remember, but somehow sleep deprivation just drives away memories of all specifics.  It took us a while to pack up and get going.  By the time we arrived it was 10 something or other, I think.  We stopped off away from where we'd be camping.  The camp site was in the Mojave National Preserve and shooting is illegal there, so we had to shoot the skeet prior to hitting MNP land.

Those glasses are defense against wind.  Has little to do with fashion, except to the extent that *I* think it looks cool.  Most people don't care for them so they aren't in any way fashionable in the traditional sense.  Brian, Jacob (on his first trip with us), Richard and I hanging out while waiting for our turn to shoot.

Kyle obliterating a skeet.

Me, probably missing.  I went 0/2.  In my (very humble) defense, I only missed 2 out of the next 17.  We also shot a few more on Saturday.  My total for both days was 24/30.  I've done better.  No excuses.

Be grateful for this picture.  I took my shades off, and got enough dust in my eyes to irritate them for most of the rest of the day.  Had to post it, though.  This is one of the few I could find with Drew in it.

We kept in contact during the trip.  Our car was Snow Panther (Brian picked it).  I think theirs was Eagle 5.  Affectionately, we called them Prairie Dog and they called us Little Kitty.  Personally I think the jeep did look like a Prairie Dog.  And will someone tell me how a "Little Kitty" could carry as much stuff as we had in the truck bed?

Brian and I bought groceries the night before and figured we'd hang out together on the drive out there.  Worked out pretty good.  We had a fun time.

Some nasty wind while we were there.  That tent fell over several times.  I didn't sleep well during the night so I was still kind of out of it in the morning.  And since the purpose of the trip was to relax, Brian and I skipped out on the morning hike.  More on that on Kyle's blog - paladinw94.blogspot.com - While playing a friendly card game of 'War', the tent started falling on top of us.  I won his last card just in time to grab my shoes and hop out the tent door before the thing finished collapsing.  We actually had to fix it once that morning while they were gone and didn't feel like doing it again just then. 

Lovely camping spot.  It had a table and the campfire spot...thing...whatever they're called, had rocks actually cemented in...or something like that.

Just after this picture was taken, a strong wind came up, knocking that top one off it's pedestal and through our campsite.  Jk.

Kyle posted a similar picture on his blog.  I opted for the smoky one.  Somehow it looked more epic to me.

Hard to tell from the background, but snow is actually starting to come in.  Personally, I was glad.  Snow beats wind any day.  Especially if you have contacts.

There's some hills behind Kyle that could be seen quite clearly most of the time.  However, the wind was blowing some snow off the mountain onto us.  Wasn't cold enough for any to settle on the ground, though.

Hiking up to the mines.  After we pushed him down this hole, we suddenly realized Jacob had the camera.  He decided to take a picture of us trying to figure how to get him out.  Actually, the guys had seen there was an open shaft and Jacob kindly volunteered to take a shot of us.

Chillin'.

Looking down a mine shaft.  We drove over to some old mines.  There were some old buildings and supplies around, too.

Me reading a piece of an old newspaper, or possibly a magazine.

Kyle climbed down.  You can't see us too clearly at the top, but anyway...

The rest of Drew's pictures can be found at - http://picasaweb.google.com/aks427/DesertTripApril2009#

Thanks for stopping by.  It's been a while since I've posted on here.