A Joshua Tree Birthday for Me

If you follow me on Instagram, you probably saw that I recently turned 40. I wasn’t going to have a party, I really wasn’t. But my sister insisted. She told me she would plan the whole thing and just asked where I wanted to go. I said Joshua Tree, because I love the desert.

So last weekend, she flew down from Portland and we met a few of my girlfriends out at a rental house just north of the Joshua Tree National Park border. We went to a super-hippy yoga class on Saturday morning, and then about half of our group went on a horseback ride in the desert, just as the sun was setting. It was particularly lush out there, given all the rain California has had this past winter. I saw plants I had never seen before in the desert.

While we were gone, the other half of the group, the women who opted not to ride horses, were busy setting up my birthday present. My sis had put the word out weeks before and collected 41 books from friends and family. That’s forty, and one to grow on – like candles, get it? They were stacked up in a big ‘ol tower for me to discover when I came in.

The tower came with a list of each title and who it was from. It was the best birthday present ever. Seriously. I was all giddy, and spent a good hour taking the pile apart and looking at who each book was from. I went to bed that night all glowy, just thinking about all the books waiting for me.

The next morning, we drove through the park and did some exploring. (I really wanted to hike, but my foot is still healing from a running injury, so we stuck to driving around taking pictures.)

It was a wonderful birthday weekend. A million thanks, to my most awesome sis.