Day 7Mar 23, 2009
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Me and Tyler
After a quick goodbye from Rayna I packed up and left to meet Tyler for brunch. We ate at a small cafe in downtown San Diego and then I left for Anza Borrego State Park. En route to the park I passed a small jeep painted in camouflage paint, covered in camo-netting, and bearing several skulls. I stayed away from that Jeep. After missing an off-ramp to change freeways I basically ran out of gas before I could find a suitable gas station (I refuse to pay extra for Shell, Exxon, Chevron, etc) and so had to use some of the gas in the portable gas container Dimitri gave me for the trip. With the extra mileage I managed to find an Arco and refiled both my car and the gas container. After several hours of driving through various typed of desert I arrived in Anza Borrego State Park, which is where I believe Jessica's family likes to off-road. I asked a park ranger for advice on places to camp and she suggested I stay at Arroyo Salado campground. There are no amenities there but it is free. By the time I arrived there it was past 5:30pm and the sun was setting. There wasn't another person for as far as I could see (which is a long way in the mostly flat desert). I set up my tent, which proved far more difficult than I expected due to high winds. My tent actually flew away at one point but I ran it down... I ate dinner (a power bar...) and then photographed the sunset. As I walked around I noticed small cactus balls with spines sticking out in all directions scattered around on the ground. I didn't pay them much attention until I felt a sharp pain in my ankle. I looked down and saw that one of those spiny balls was caught in the bottom of my jeans. I kicked at it with my other shoe. HUGE MISTAKE. One of the spines went through my shoe like a knife through warm butter and stuck deep in my foot. Wincing, I took off my shoe and yanked gently on the ball. My skin stretched, but the spine didn't budge. I closed my eyes and pulled really hard and the spine came out. I respected the spiny balls far more from that point onwards. Once it was dark there wasn't much to do since fires aren't permitted and I had no wood anyway so I watched A Civil Action on my computer until the batteries died and then read. I was ready to sleep early anyway due to the lack of sleep I'd been getting.
