I stare out my hotel room window at the highway, enjoying the respite of air conditioning from the summer desert heat outside. My chocolate milk and snacks from the grocery store feel like delicacies, well earned after a long day of work. I'm trying to avoid the pitfalls of previous long work stints in the desert of Southern California - long hours, work frustrations, illogical decisions - although these can be said about most jobs. The days seem to blend together between working, sleeping, and eating. Its a strange exile at a forgotten airport, with carcasses of dying airplanes that seem to wilt in the heat and dirt.Looking around, there is something lacking. I haven't been able to put a finger on it - until now. There are no elephants. Not in the hangar, not roaming the airport runways. Surely not in town - snacking on the shrubs outside the hotel. I would dare say their aren't even pink elephants to be seen - and there is surely no elephant in my hotel room to ignore (no large gorillas in the room to ignore either...)
When I have been able to escape to the mountains, I have been more worried about run-ins with scarce bears or mountain lions than a heard of roaming elephants, poisonous snakes, or ghastly spiders. A friend wears a bear bell for a trail run in an area with a bear sow with two cubs. I think twice whether the intent is to alert and scare or alert and entice - ala the dinner bell. When I emerge from my tent at night, there are no hippos to look out for and no lions to deter me from straying more than a few inches from my sleeping bag. I wonder more about how many hikers we will see on the trail and what is for lunch - not whether I will become lunch.
Its a different mindset. A different comfort level in the wild. Can it even be considered wild? Do you have elephants?
