I came across an article the other day. It was an interview of Alastair Humphreys talking about the virtues of microadventures. While I hadn’t heard of that term before, it got me thinking about my own adventures. I have a standard “9-5″ desk job that keeps me at home most weeks out of the year, and just as Alastair was speaking about, I try my best to fill the time between my paid time off going on short, local weekend trips.
A few weeks ago, we went on a trip to Anza Borrego State Park to go off-roading. Anza Borrego State Park is east of San Diego. I had been there once before for a camping/hiking trip. The trip felt very spontaneous but came together marvelously.
Sarah, Jason, and Kristen headed to Anza Borrego earlier on Saturday. We had nearly cancelled the trip when we found out that the weather would be about 90-100 F in the park. We decided to go for it anyway since we knew our next few weekends would be busy. Kelvin had a game on Saturday evening, so while waiting around, I baked cookies to celebrate Sarah’s and Kristen’s birthdays. I headed downstairs to offer my neighbors, Gaby and Carlos some cookies. Over cookies and coffee late in the evening, I ended up convincing them to join us on our midnight rendezvous to the desert.
At around 10PM, Kelvin gets home from shooting the game, and Luke, Kelvin and I pack into his car to caravan to Anza Borrego.
In the morning, we enjoyed a feast of orange juice, bacon, eggs, and coffee thanks to our new off roading refrigerator. One of my favorite things are slow mornings at the campsite. Ginger, Jason’s and Sarah’s sweet dog, was also very interested in our breakfast.
With the help of Bruce, Kelvin’s fearless 4Runner, we were able to visit some great sights that I didn’t even realize existed in Anza Borrego. Our first stop was Font’s Point. It reminds me of Death Valley a bit.
Kelvin brought his drone to capture some aerial views.
Can you spot Kelvin’s quadcopter in this photo?
The views I had weren’t so bad either.
Next, we headed to Calcite Mine trail to view some slot canyons. This was a pretty tricky off-roading trail. Here’s Carlos’s car charging through the trail.
We had a hard time figuring out how to get down into the slot canyons from where we left our cars, so we had to improvise a bit.
The slot canyons were well worth the challenges we faced getting in and out of the canyon.
At a certain point as we were trying to get out of the canyon, we had to climb up several obstacles.
The hike ended up being much more intense than we expected. Kelvin pointing our way out.
We were home before dinner on Sunday, and although short, it was no doubt an amazing escape from every day life.
