Integraton & Giant Rock

- 13  May 2012 -

Rise and shine it’s time check out some more weirdness in the desert.  Let’s fire up the grill and eat some beer brats.  After a quick pack up of the campsite we were off.  As mornings normal go after a night of partying the crew needed some coffee so, we headed into the city of Joshua Tree to regroup.  On the way we noticed a very familiar statue of Marilyn Monroe strapped down to a flatbed truck.  Wasn’t this just in Chicago when we visited back in September?  We had to stop and take some photos of this; it was just too weird to see again, especially in the middle of the desert.  After a quick photo shoot we were off to see the alien crafted Integratron.  Our timing was a bit too soon and when we arrived the gate was shut.  No worries the weird old man back in Pioneertown told us about Giant rock and the quartz mountain not too far away.  I am never comfortable in taking my Honda Fit off-road into sand but, what the hell?  After a painfully slow three or so miles into the dusty desert we arrived at Giant rock, the largest free standing boulder in the world.  Giant rock is about seven stories tall and is a massive monolith of granite.  Just off to the east of Giant rock is a fairly large mountain if quartz, so we decided to mine a few pieces as souvenirs.  It was getting close to time for our scheduled sound bath at the Integratron so we headed back down the long sandy road.  Our arrival was perfectly timed and the owners made us feel at home and told us to relax and enjoy the place.  A bit of some time in the hammock and a few back massages later it was time to partake in our first sound bath.  The Integratron feels just like a hippies living room with comfortable furniture and non-relevant instruments that hippies feel are spiritual somehow.  Upstairs was a different story.  This was a perfectly spherical dome with a fairly large skylight in the top.  I’m not sure why, but everyone felt like they had to whisper in here, so it gave the room an eerie vibe.  We set up our yoga mats and began to relax.  The MC of the day entered the dome and began telling us about magnetic fault lines and spiritual energies resonating at 7.8Hz. He then claimed this is the reason astronauts become weak in space because the human body needs this 7.8Hz frequency.  It was getting weird really quick.  Then the MC started playing the quartz bowls and told us we may fall asleep during our sound bath due to relaxation.  HOLY SHIT, that was loud as hell man.  How can I relax when my ears are piercing?  Luckily this was just a test to show us how loud it could get but, the volume was significantly lower during the show.  Once the show began I started having problems syncing my breathing to the sound and I become anxious.  This quickly faded and I seriously began to feel like I was floating.  We all did.  I had to press my palms into the floor to assure myself that I wasn’t.  The rest is a blur and I woke up to the sound of peaceful flutes.   My whole body was relaxed and my head was clear and nobody said a word for quite a while.  Did we time travel?  Did aliens visit us?  Had our spirits left and then returned to our bodies?  No, I’m pretty sure we just fell asleep but, it was an interesting experience.  Time to grab some food and head out of town.  On our way back we saw the huge dinosaurs from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.  Being a fan of the movie I pulled over to check it out.  Inside the belly of the brachiosaurus is a gift shop and for some reason they were selling cap guns.  Well after our recent gun slinging adventures in Pioneertown, I wanted to shoot something.  What better to shoot then a massive concrete dinosaur?  After getting the gun slinging out of my system and scaring the shit out of the family eating underneath the dinosaur it was time to head back to San Diego.  It’s always nice to leave a mini vacation to return to the full time vacation of living in the lovely town of San Diego.  Cheers Folks

Joshua Tree

- 12 May 2012 -

After our adventures in Pioneertown we decided to hike the Barkers dam in Joshua Tree.  Usually there is a lake out here but it was bone dry when we got there.  It’s pretty cool walking around a dried up lakebed and seeing all the watermarks on the rocks.  We hung out for a bit here and hiked back as the sun was starting to set.  Then it was time to set up camp and cook some delicious steaks on the campfire.  Once dinner was done we had to make some smores for dessert before going to bed to dream about the weird alien built time travelling spirit generator perfectly acoustic sound bath meditation apparatus that we were planning on visiting in the morning.

Pioneerstown

- 12 May 2012 - 

We started off our weekend adventure by going to Pioneertown, CA.  It’s not actually a town, its western movie set used to film a ton of old western films.  We heard there was a gun battle reenactment that takes place at 2:30, but we arrived early.  We decided to kill the time by getting some sarsaparilla at the town saloon.  Pappy and Harriot’s was where all of the town’s action seemed to be going down.  The locals were all friendly and even let us play with the dogs.  With the sarsaparillas empty we decided to walk down to the gun battle.  It was cheesy as one would expect but, hey it was free and we had a rootin’ tootin’ good ole time.  We then walked around the town exploring the set.  At the very end of town we met up with one of the locals who mentioned some interesting things.  He told us about George Van Tassel and how aliens had abducted him and returned him to earth back in New York with two large manuals of alien technology.  George then used the information in the manuals to return to Landers, CA where he began creating a spirit generator that could time travel.  However, shortly after Van Tassel began using the time traveling spirit generator the men in black came in a dismantled the device leaving merely a perfectly acoustic chamber in the middle of nowhere.  This perfectly acoustic sound chamber was the main event for the weekend and we took the psycho babble at face value and went on with our day.  After a gnarly story like that we needed one more stop at the local watering hole before we were off to Joshua Tree for some hiking and camping.