Yes, I Found Art in the Desert... And It Was the BEST! (part 1, I guess)

We did something kind of out of the ordinary for us during this trip to the desert.

I didn't plan shit. 

Normally, we will go on a trip and I will have a long list of things I MUST DO. Places to see, food to eat, drinks to drinks, I always come with at least a 95%-formed plan for any trip I take.

However, since the focus of this trip was a wedding that had some already-built-in activities, I didn't the need to plan all the things. 

I just let us go with the flow. 

And honestly, searching for activities my normal way (deep deep google maps dives) felt extremely overwhelming for this trip, so I just stopped trying. 

My plan was to try again when we arrived, but I just... didn't. We arrived, it was gorgeous and we decided to let adventure take us. 

When we woke up on our first full day, our only concrete activity was a welcome dinner for the wedding later that night. So, after waking me up with a fire, we piled in the car, put the top down and turned right.

And we just drove. 

We saw some cute lil shops and stuff, but nothing really struck our fancy. So we kept driving. 

Then I saw I giant Pepsi can looming in the distance. 

"I would like you to pull in at the giant Pepsi can, please", I said to Mickey. 

So he did and we found ourselves at the The Glass Outhouse Art Gallery. 

There was a sign out front that said, "Honk to see the gallery."

We did not honk, but instead just walked around the extensive outdoor exhibition. We really took our time with it.

These are just a fraction of the amazing scenes that we feasted on:

This gallery was by far the most playful of all the art we discovered during this trip. Each scene could tell many different stories and even when we shared pics at the end of the day, it was wild to see the stories that Mickey captured with his camera that I didn't even notice. 

There were also a decent amount of interactive pieces, like the mirror pictured above (and below). The photos do not do this experience justice. The chair was very low to the ground and the mirror, perfectly clean. It was a very surreal experience to sit there and see the vastness of nature behind you. Very humbling. 

In my photo, I am writing a note in a little notebook. There were many of these stored in glass jars surrounding the mirror piece. I am happy to have contributed. 

And speaking of surreal, let me tell you about the Glass Outhouses proper. 

Now, I feel silly admitting this, because it's just PEEing, but I'd seen these glass outhouses during some artistic rabbit hole that I fell down once and I'd always wanted to go pee in one. But I never knew how to google what it even was. So I had just resigned myself to a lifetime of boring pees. 

Now, also, for the bulk of our wandering around the grounds, I had no idea the name of the place we were. Honestly, I thought it might just be someone's yard, and they were expecting people to walk around because there were clearly marked paths and, I mean, an absolutely massive amount of art.

But then we rounded the corner and saw some random glass boxes. Cool, maybe they were tiny chapels like the one we'd been inside earlier.

Then I opened the door to one and yelped embarrassingly loudly, cause this is what I saw:

This is not my photo. I was definitely too excited to snap anything other than the button on my pants open as I said to Mickey, proudly, "I'm gonna go pee!"

And the silent beauty was incredible. I didn't even really have to pee that much, but I squeezed out a trickle for the experience. It just wouldn't have been the same to simply be inside the glass outhouse. I had to use it to. 

I'm gonna have to go back and do it again, though, cause I forgot to get any pics from the inside. Oh nooooo, another trip to California!

By the time we came around to the entrance again, an older couple was sitting outside and encouraged us to walk into the galleries proper. 

The couple told us that the art inside the galleries changes monthly. We took our time through them and even picked out some little notecards so I can send love letters to my friends that have great art on the front of them.

As we were leaving, the lady yelled out to us, "Don't leave without it!"

We stopped in our tracks, wondering what we forgot. She leapt out of her chair and walked up to us with something in her hand. 

She shoved it into my hand and reminded us, "I hope to see you back here next month! We'll have all new artists!"

 This is it. Literally.