Campfire in the desert

We live on the edge of town. Beyond our neighborhood, there are lots and lots of empty areas with sand hills and scrub. Russ loves to head out there with the FJ and practice driving in the sand. A few months ago, when driving through that area one night, we noticed across the tops of each dune families parked and enjoying the cool desert night air to escape from the heat of the city. We've been saying to ourselves ever since that we need to get out and have a campfire. Russell has been building a pile of firewood from trees and bushes that he's pull from the rubbish piles in the neighborhood. For several weeks, we've had a nice pile of wood ready to take out in the desert. So, last Friday, we went. We've been cool enough that we didn't need any escape from the heat. But it was fun to get out into the desert. Russell built up the fire(newspapers, kindling, and neatly stacked wood). With one match (actually flick of the lighter), whooosh - we had a beautiful fire going. We had perched ourselves on top of a dune where we could be easily seen by other drivers (ATVs and 4x4s) out bashing the dunes in the night. Seems that every family that was out had an ATV. The kids were riding up and down - of course no helmet or safety gear was worn. Makes me cringe everytime I see those kids popping wheelies on their ATVs speeding down our street.


Lyra loves playing in the sand. The sand out here is beautiful, silky, and cool. Next to our villa, the sand is full of construction debris. The kids are constantly getting themselves cut on something as they dig through the sand playing. It hasn't stopped them from climbing through the sand, but they are a bit more cautious after several cuts on one kid or another. But out here, there's not much to worry about - except some thorny branches from the scrub. Lyra is a true Sand Baby. Whenever we're out in the desert, Lyra loves playing in the sand. She rolls in it, climbs the dunes, slides down them like they're made of snow, rolls down the dunes, makes sand angels, digs holes and lays in them, follows the tracks of beetles - you name it. When we get home, we strip her in the garage and hold all her clothes upside down to shake the sand out. Then we run upstairs for a bath - and watch the sand piles form in the bottom of the tub as we wash her hair.
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I said it was cold! Temps were around 55F/12C. The warm fire felt gooooood!

Note: Since then, our weather has shifted. I think winter is over and we're now on the steady climb back to HOT, HOT, HOT.

So, now we're itching to try our hand at some desert camping. We've got to get out before the heat is too much.