The pitch: Drive to the desert with the intent to do night photography and stay and overnight in an AirBnB
The preparation: Pack enough camera equipment to scare the local population into believing you’re starting a feature film production.
The execution: End up exactly where I was sitting writing the last update without seeing a single grain of sand.
Running late, as customary for bigger road trips, we hopped into the car after stowing all the gear we had packed for the trip away.
The night before, we agreed to rendezvous briefly at an old school friend house to watch the Germany vs. Spain World Cup football game before continuing our journey to the final destination in Joshua Tree.
Showing up three quarters into the full game, I was offered a beer, which was of course gratefully accepted.
As the great Benji Franklin and his band of merry men once proposed - “E Pluribus Unum”, or “Out of many, one”, I similarly had an adage of my own between my beer and me - “E Unum Pluribus” - One out of many.
One thing led to another and we spent the next couple of hours enjoying the cooler weather on the patio, drinking Brewskis and having conversations about the old and the new, nothing and everything. It was just great spending time with great people.
As time passed, and the shadows cast grew longer and longer, we had to admit defeat that our original plan of visiting dunes would not be realistic anymore.
So as one does - we compromised, drove back towards the Hollywood Hills, took a blurry photo of city lights and called it an early day.
The sands will have to wait for another time.