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Another Caravanserai - Travels through American West - 2



Today I drove down the Sonoran Desert Highway from Sedona, AZ till Joshua Tree, CA. I am staying in this unique AirBnB which is basically a remodeled 1984 Fleetwood Prowler (no relation to Fleetwood Mac that I have been recently obsessing over and whose tribute concert that I am planning to attend day after tomorrow in LA). My left eye seems to have got scorched by the constant exposure to desert sun – Gemini thinks that it is because of being inside the air-conditioned car which dramatically reduces the humidity especially while travelling through desert. Throughout the journey I was struggling with a constant pain/irritation on my left eye. A thought crossed my mind about what it would be like if all of this ended in a fiery car crash. Such thoughts of mortality keep coming to me. When this thought came, I felt absurd about checking the NAV of my mutual funds last night.


What is not absurd is that I felt the preciousness of my meditation practice yet again. These quiet moments of clarity are precious by themselves. Sam Harris mentioned in one of the podcasts (that I forced myself to listen to to keep myself awake) that people don’t realize how oppressive the mind is till you manage to get a pause somehow – in Sam’s case that initial moment of distance/pause came from a MDMA trip. For me, and many other yoga practitioners, these are daily experiences. That moment of pause from the oppression suddenly makes everything a little more sweet, bearable and loose.


Today felt like a real adventure – that lurking sense of danger, the possibility of discovering a unique desert town, passing by a roadside airport featuring all vintage aircraft, epic vistas, endless deserts, that sense of arrival while pulling into another unknown AirBnb. Checking into each AirBnB feels like checking into one more of life’s caravanserais. I am excited to watch the night sky tonight while skinny dipping in the outdoor jaccuzi. There are still a few things money can buy. The host Daniel seems to be living his life. He is a media professional who is supposed to work in his LA office but is now living in the middle of Sonoran desert, he fixes giant desert buggies and motorcycles while managing an offbeat AirBnB. He has dreadlocks and he keeps cannabis as a welcome gift for his AirBnB guests. Y was my driver/guide for the offroad tour of the Broken Arrow Trail on the Pink Jeep tour. I spontaneously booked this ride the day before. Y is a recent divorcee and is looking for love. He is bummed that all the dating apps in the Sedona area has males outnumbering females 5:1. He has almost given up hope of finding his match. I found that he is also a big fan of Matt's offroad recovery YouTube channel. We had this  unlikely conversation about how Matt exudes this amicable energy which inevitably draws people in.


Through all these random acquaintances and experiences, I feel I am searching for profundity – this was supposed to be a break from everyday work – where it is so easy to just try to get through another day and one hardly gets time to think about profoundness of life’s experience. At the same time, I remind myself that moments of profundity happen almost always in the most pedestrian circumstances and epic sunrises and grand vistas are not needed every time.

Desert Oasis - Dan's AirBnb


Arabian nights vibe in Southern California


Monday Morning

Sedona Magic


The only distortion..


Vegan Dinner at Wild Wild West (Joshua tree Saloon)















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