The Desert & Joshua Tree Coffee Roasters

The Bean Journal #15

Where: Joshua Tree Coffee Company, 61738 29 Palms Hwy, Joshua Tree CA 92252
Open: T-R 7:00 AM - 3:00 PM and F-SN 7:00 AM - 5:00 PM
What: Batch Brew black drip Bali Kintamani (Single Origin)
Roast: Light
Price: $3.25
What I’m listening to: DOPE LEMON, “Coyote”

---

Last week I took the sojourn in the desert—Ryan Campground in Joshua Tree, to be precise. It’s an adventure common among San Diegans looking to escape. Escape what, besides the wi-fi signal, I’m not sure. That’s why I was going. No internet. I packed the car with the essentials—books, a camera, sleeping bag, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, whiskey, and really good coffee.

I rarely sleep well the first night at any camp, especially in the desert. I crawled into my sleeping bag. For once, I remembered my pillow, and the fall temperatures dropped down into the high 40s making for the perfect cozy temps in the back of the Ruka (Ruka is the name of my Wife’s Subaru). I shifted around, trying to twist and contort so that none of the various back seat apparatus ended up jamming into the square of my back.

My pre-coffee morning view from the back of the ‘Ruka.

I lay there looking at the stars through the moon roof. The desert sky is big and wide. Even when camping alone, I point out the constellations I know as if I’m teaching a child. Then I explore the sky for shapes that look familiar and drag the dregs of my brain for long-lost astronomy class knowledge.*

Then as the darkness settled, the desert amplified every noise. Carabiners tink-tink-tinked as my neighbor campers returned from a night climb. Their laughter amplified off the boulder walls. Gravel crunched as campers headed for the bathroom. Wind surfed the ridges before dropping in and whistling through the Joshua Trees in the valley. Rodents skittered below, and long after darkness fell completely, a pack of coyotes howled at the rising moon—or more likely a poor rabbit they were chasing—with such ferocity I couldn’t help sitting up against the back of the passenger seat to listen.

At camp, I use a propane stove to heat water and an Aeropress or French press to brew coffee.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying there are many reasons I don’t sleep well in the desert, and when I awake to the purple and red sky not long after dawn, I really want coffee. This week I had two options, both of which I pursued. They are as follows.