The date was October 22; my stepdad, a family friend, and I were leaving the confines of society and venturing into the Mojave desert for the weekend. My stepdad is currently working on a musical piece that requires a film part, so he chose the austere desert location to compliment his musical composition. The first course of duty was choosing a pleasant camping spot. So, being the adventurers that we are, we decided to stay near an abandoned (and haunted) mining town. The dusty road leading out to this location was, to say it lightly – sketchy. Upon our arrival we all commenced individual operations: our friend was hard at work setting up his super cool camera system, my stepdad busied himself with unloading and standing up our tents, and I surveyed the surroundings. I began by walking into the ruins of a house, where I noticed a refrigerator. I opened it up and was met with a scampering of rodents. “Great,” I thought. “I probably have hantavirus now.”

Almost instantly following my brush with hantavirus I noticed a grouping of palm trees, so I made my way over there and noticed a  recently traveled pathway leading through the sharp palm fronds. Being the cliche horror movie character that I am, I decided it seemed like an excellent plan to follow the path! It twisted around until it reached a circular center in the heart of the grove. It got very quiet, to the point where the wind completely stopped. I didn’t really want to die, so I ran as fast as I could back to our tent.

After we journeyed to some magnificent locations and got some really beautiful shots, we wrapped up and made our way back to the tent compound. The sun was just beginning to set and turn the sky into hues of magenta and mango. The campfire was warm and I happily made my way through over two dozen marshmallows – which is an accomplishment I am quite proud of. Once all hints of daylight disappeared and it was truly dark, our friend set up his camera to get time-lapse photos of the Milky Way.

A couple hours later, we thought it would be fun to walk around the very creepy abandoned house and get pictures. Not long after our evening walk began we found ourselves in the periphery of the palm grove. The temperature dropped at least ten degrees and it suddenly smelled very strongly of sulfur… I felt eerily uncomfortable. The feeling is very hard to describe. I heard a loud banging and the noticed that the wind had picked up, slamming things around in the cabins. 

I suddenly heard the jostling of a dog collar and saw my pup, Rex, running towards us. I thought it odd because I was sure that we had zipped him up in the tent so he could sleep. We went back to our site with a slightly terrified feeling and slept soundly.