people go crazy in the desert.

I'm in a place called tehachapi in the mojave desert. Despite all the warnings of extreme heat and the danger of dehydration, the desert so far has been freezing. Literally. We just missed the snow entering the desert, and on our dreaded aqueduct day, in which we follow the LA aqueduct for miles through the desert, I lay in the sun in my down jacket at lunch in an attempt to warm up.
Last night I slept in a canyon with brilliant stars above and awoke to ice on my sleeping bag. This was after cooking up fettuccine with smoked salmon and sun dried tomatoes in fierce, unrelenting wind. That wind provides energy for the thousands of turbines in tehachapi pass, which we'll spend the next 8 miles walking through.
I was going to write about some of the surreal, strange and excellent experiences of recent times, but it's real midnight - 3 hours after hiker midnight, so hopefully I'll add some in the morning.

the strange thing we're walking on is the LA aqueduct, and those crazy looking trees are joshua trees...
bloke in the orange is drop dead, and the girl in the purple is annie... it's funny, annie said once that she doesn't like posed photos because she always looks like she's got something wrong with her - a truth perfectly captured in this shot...
back to the craziness, it's hard to articulate, however since hitting the mojave we've had a string of bizarre, surreal interactions with people. we stayed at a very unusual place called hikertown. seven of us slept in a garage (which usually houses million dollar rolls royces) owned by a disney movie director. in the morning we discussed the strange events of the previous night as if it had been a weird dream - that all seven of us had experienced...
here in tehachapi there's been a huge amount of goodwill towards hikers - genuine interest and helpfulness, and yet there's been enough crazy interactions for us all to think maybe we should get out of the desert...