For a long time I had dreamed of spending the winter months down South in the deserts. My first foray into the desert was years ago. My first wife and I lived in a smaller, 20’ travel trailer, towed by a ¾ ton van. We arranged over 3 weeks in our schedules to make the excursion. We planned on checking out some the places we had read about that fired us up like the Long Term Visitor Areas on the California Arizona border. You can purchase a pass to spend up to 7 months boondocking in the desert at several large tracts of public land near the Colorado River. It sounded like a dream come true. Indeed it was, for a nomadicly inspired couple. The trip was everything we thought it might be, albeit, too short.
This year my current wife and I decided that we were going to further explore the desert areas in a little more detail. We were being drawn to Palm Springs as the hub, and the wilderness areas surrounding it. I constantly was checking the weather statistics and the forecasts to see if the dream of winter warmth and abundant sunshine was a reality. Everything was checking out, hardly any rain, with the temps in the 60’s and up all winter long. We intended to spend several months down South this year.
Desert Climate Agreeable
It is my personal belief that we were meant to dwell in comfortable warm climates the year round. We obviously are ill equipped to handle cold weather without housing and other props, with our lack of fur or hide. This means a couple of things. Either we all move to the tropics, probably where we originated, or in the North, we begin to adopt a migratory pattern of living as pointed towards by the snowbirds, RV’ers who migrate South each winter.
The desert climate is indeed everything I dreamed it to be. Most days were spent in shorts and tank tops or t-shirts if it got cold. The weather would cloud up occasionally and threaten to rain only to peter out, like we were living across some invisible border that the rain simply couldn’t cross. Once in a while the rain would actually cross the border, wetting down the place a bit, keeping the dust down. The plant life would suck up every drop, you could see it! But the monotonous, nonstop, days on end rain was not making its appearance.
Health Aspects Of The Desert and Migration
The Migrating Human...
I believe that the health aspects of being able to migrate at will is largely overlooked as an aspect of the total health picture, but it’s something you can feel when you are able to pull it off. Now that I’ve got a couple of tastes of it, I want to eat the whole meal. Of course this means that priority number one is Location Irrelevant Income sources.
A migratory pattern of living in the North during Spring Summer and Fall, then heading to the Southern states to wait out the passing of ice and snow is an obsession in my Life that’s not going away. In honor of my warmth loving biology, I endeavor to setup my lifestyle to be able to experience just that year after year long before retirement age.
The Life In The Folds
One beautiful and mysterious aspect of the deserts are the lack of trees and other plant life covering the landscape. It’s like the land is naked with no covering. The trees that are there, like the mighty Fan Palm, are often and usually hidden in some canyon, or gully that you cannot see with a casual glance.
That was one of the most profound aspects of hiking the deserts and the surrounding mountain ranges. The folds through which you journey seemed endless, revealing one joy after another, in an endless unfolding. It goes without saying if you read any of the hikes we did, that stumbling upon an Oasis down in the folds of some ravine, bordered on the magical.
The very rare, (in the desert), miners lettuce...
The plant life in the desert is built for water conservation, armored by spikes of ingenious construction. My favorites were the large Barrel Cactus, that grows far up into the mountains like old soldiers guarding the fort. There are a large number of different interesting spiked varieties as well as the unguarded blooming wildflower. We even saw some old friends in one Oasis like Miners Lettuce.
The reptiles often reflect the plant being covered with spiky looking scales. Some of the lizards were larger than anything I’ve ever seen in the North like the Desert Iguana. If you haven’t been a traveler of the desert, when you get the chance to see them, they will be unlike anything you’ve ever viewed.
For those who value solitude, you can find it in abundance in the desert. The tracts of open land are indeed vast, and the lack of plant life makes them seem even more so. You can truly get lost out there, just don’t forget the water, or you may not be coming back. The population is concentrated in certain areas around water sources like springs, oasis water and the like. The mountains as we have said in the Palm Springs area and Joshua Tree border on the spectacular.
Coming Back!
Just as we had hoped, the desert is an exceedingly beautiful place, with a climate to match. The dream of migrating to the South and spending the cold winter months each year is indeed a reality to be had. There is so much down South just in California, it boggles the mind. We came back a bit early as business called; in further years, we will probably stay until May, and then begin the journey North.
If you find yourself wanting to avoid the winter blues and live in America, schedule or arrange some time for some desert exploration. You may find yourself as we do, spending all your time figuring out a way to make it a permanent reality to make seasonal migrations. Now on to figure out how to wild plant the wilderness down South…
