A Day in the Desert

So, my fellow teacher asked me if I wanted to join her for a trip to the desert to go 4-wheeling and to have a picnic.  Her son was coming with a friend of his and she did not want to be the only girl.  Because it is Saudi, her driver was driving, setting things up, and acting as a sherpa.  I was excited about the opportunity to do something my students had been raving about, as spending time in the desert during the winter is the greatest past time.  So, with no expectations, a bottle of water, and a large package of wet-wipes, I was off.

After over an hour of waiting at the meet-up point, we were finally on our way.  Our fearless leader had sent everyone a map point to show them where we were supposed to go.  He then took off like a bat out of hell and left us mostly in the dust....literally.  There was a small caravan of cars heading to the desert until one of the cars got a flat tire.  When we pulled over to help. we got stuck in the sand.  We got out of the car and this is what greeted us.

Yup, pretty much what it looks like.  There are dunes further on, and the green stuff is some hardy desert plants.  There are these round things that look like tiny watermelons, that turned out to be actually related to watermelons, but most sites on the web said they were inedible...I did NOT bother trying a bite.

Apparently it was grasshopper mating season, so we all got to enjoy the show.

We had paid 180 SAR (about $47) to use the 4-wheelers, and for a barbeque supper, but my friend Maria said she did not trust what they might be cooking so she came prepared with a cooler full of burgers, hot dogs, steaks, and the works.  When we FINALLY made it to the site, we found ourselves between some dunes, and having gotten stuck in the sand once, agreed to load everything into someone's vehicle who had serious 4-wheel drive.  So, unpack, repack, head over the dunes.  So, if you look at the pictures above, this was pretty much it.  After realizing that the wet-wipes were very welcome, we headed over a dune for privacy to hit the head.  Yup, why I hate hardcore camping.  After that, we headed back to the site to assemble the grill and prepare to cook.

The wind had started to kick up and soon enough, grill was blazing, the hot dogs and hamburgers were cooking, and we were getting hit with a serious sand storm.  Maria and I stopped for a pic.

By the time we got around to cooking the steaks, things were very crunchy to eat.  We all agreed that as soon as we were done cooking we were heading home.  We were fortunate to be in a vehicle that was capable of getting over the dunes.  The driver hit a running start and we literally flew/bounced over the dunes hard enough to hit the ceiling and bounce back a few times.  Our driver could NOT load the stuff into the car fast enough to head out.  Ok, "camping in the desert"....I can check that off my bucket list....not going back!