A home for my words.

Sometimes I leave out the more personal elements of my travel stories, but I am trying to incorporate them a bit more. After all, I hope to look back at these in the distant future to remind myself of some of the high points in life and sometimes even the low points that came with them.

I say that because I normally would have left out the reason I was able to go on this trip. The long-story short is: at the time, I was dating a guy who was booked to work as a model for an outdoor clothing brand. He was able to get me booked also. We then proceeded to break up during the trip…life is funny like that. But hey, I got to visit Joshua Tree and meet a wonderful crew of people!

I look back at the photo below of me carrying a crash pad and think: wow, I was so tan and so much more fit. Back then I was skinny and strong and now I’m just skinny. That’s one of those constant cycles I seem to go through in life. I like to joke with myself that I live such a soft life these days that I don’t even need any muscles, but in reality I value having strength and generally make my way back to rebuilding it. Also, RIP to those dearly departed vintage-style triangle sunglasses; they had a fun cat-like print on them.

Because the desert was still over 100 degrees each day, our group would have to drive out to location before sunrise. We’d get as many photos as possible while layered up and then shoot with the cooler clothing as the temperature rose. That’s one fun fact about the modeling world. People shoot campaigns in opposing seasons, so the model you see on a website layered for autumn may have actually had to take those photos in sweltering temps, or wear that bikini when it was actually freezing cold!

On one dark and early drive, someone chose a playlist composed of unknown songs. One track had haunting lyrics, but it captivated our group. Music can be powerful like that. Jeffrey Martin sang to us: “I am a thief and a liar and the very worst kind.” No one said a word until it was over. Then, someone asked if we could play it again. And we all agreed.