Last night I got robbed on BLM land outside Joshua Tree National Park. I’d gone for a hike about 4 p.m., and after grabbing dinner I returned to my campsite at 7:45, so there were perhaps 90 minutes of darkness when it likely happened. I’m basically in a huge open flat area just east of some snow-capped mountains, and as I approached my camper my first thought was, “Is that my camper? It doesn’t look quite right.” And then I realized my solar panel was gone. “Where could that have gone to?” I wondered. It was like my mind was subconsciously entering the first stage of grief: denial.
I pulled alongside my camper and did a walk-around and noticed my other solar panel was gone as well, as was my battery, torn from where it was bolted to the camper frame. They even took the propane tank. All in all it was about $1,000 of stuff, but fortunately the most expensive item, a $500 solar panel, was borrowed from a good friend of mine. So he is out of luck. I texted him where he is 2,000 miles away back in Minnesota that “It is unfortunate that we have been robbed, but I am glad at least not to have to go through this alone, as your solar panel was also stolen.” And I will say that when you have been violated, it is really nice not to have to go it alone in your misfortune.
Once I better assessed the damage, I quickly entered stage two of grief: anger, bordering on rage. I yelled in the darkness like the coyotes here do each night, howling and yipping from the foothills as if their intent is to stir up all the dogs of the campground and hear them go wild, to give them a taste as they are trapped within their owners’ tents and RVs, where they are no doubt happy, yet perhaps unaware of this wild alternative, but now with the howling of the coyotes these dogs remember themselves each night and were it not for locks on the doors and zippers on the tents they might become what they once were eons ago: thirsty for blood, as was I.
If only I’d skipped dinner, I thought to myself. I might have caught the thieves in the act and rained hell down upon them, these mud people who rise up born of a some foul desert rain, for I am powerful when I am angry. But I had nowhere to direct my rage, and so I quickly entered another stage of grief: depression.
First things first though, I had to backtrack half a dozen miles into town for propane or I’d be without heat at night. Though it hasn’t been too cold, my fridge also runs off propane and I’d just stocked it with food I didn’t want spoiled. Already it was beeping its displeasure at me, the frost inside dripping through the bottom seal of the door. They must have struck just after the sun went down for it to have warmed so much.
And so I drove much too fast, prowled past some other campsites and shined my headlights on them, as though they might be stupid enough to leave the stolen items outside after having just taken them. Returning with a new canister of fuel, I moved to the final stage of grief: wine.
In the morning I tried to look on the bright side: things could have been worse. But of course, things can always be worse, and it is of little comfort to the people for whom things are bad to know this. Still, the mud people only took my spare battery ($175) and left me the lithium ($300), which was in fact connected to the camper and would have done considerable damage had they pulled it. And so I am grateful for that.
And they didn’t get my generator (I’d locked it to the frame of the camper), so even without solar I’m still able to get power. And they didn’t break into my camper, where they could have taken my wifi satellite and laptop, which would have ended my trip immediately. As it is, I’m still on the road, if a bit scarred and less trusting. I’ve never had anything stolen from a campsite before, and I’ve camped all my life.
Since this was my first time on BLM land (though I’ve done dispersed camping/boondocking in forests), I posted to a BLM camping Facebook group I am part of, if only to commiserate. A couple of things happened then. Thing 1: Many people commented—hundreds of them—and many of those comments expressed surprise, as none of them had ever been stolen from on BLM land. Thing 2: Lots of people immediately began hijacking my post and claiming that the “illegals” did it, some posting articles from Fox News about how California had recently agreed to provide medical care to non-citizens, as though this were somehow related to anything other than being a decent human being. I quickly re-entered the depression stage of grief, but fortunately, I still had some wine.
In the morning I called the local sheriff’s department and they sent out young deputy J. Rivas, who asked me questions about my camper like how much it cost, how the wifi worked, etc., thinking he might want to get into the lifestyle himself. Then we discussed the stolen items, which he said I would never see again, since meth heads had probably already sold them.
The thing is, I get why people generally steal: It’s because they don’t have stuff. If everyone had money for the necessities, I would wager that there would be significantly less crime. But there are those, of course, who steal not out of need, those who are never satisfied, and we call them CEOs and billionaires (jk, but not really).
To be clear, I am opposed to stealing. But it’s the people who steal out of want that bother me. I’m also bothered by people who steal in order to do drugs. And I want to be even more clear about that: I’ve always paid for the drugs I’ve done in my life, and I remain a firm believer that if you can’t pay for your drugs, you don’t deserve to do them. Go out and get a job and make something of yourself, earn your money, and then buy your drugs fair and square like the rest of us. Buy them like a self- and other-respecting citizen of this great humanity, for god’s sake. Also, don’t do meth. It’s not even a good drug.
Probably the only good thing to come out of this is that I found a sock I had lost a week ago, one of a pair that I really like (I have favorite socks). It had somehow gotten under my mattress, which I was rearranging in an unrelated-to-the-crime endeavor.
And so I’ve learned a few lessons, I think. One is that I should lock or stow my valuables when I leave, even though it is a pain to do so. Two is that a lot of people are pretty terrible. I’ve always given people the benefit of the doubt, yet they insist upon finding new ways to disappoint me and test my capacity for forgiveness. And three, Fox News turns people into wild animals.
I’d planned on staying at Joshua Tree for one more week, but tomorrow morning I’m hitting the road. I’ve been soured, no doubt, and I’m paranoid now of leaving my campsite in anything but daylight hours. This feeling is far worse than the loss of my property. Still, if this is the worst that happens to me this trip, I’m glad it’s out of the way. I’ve written about it now, and so I’m done thinking about it, regretting it, being angry about it.
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