Joshua Tree National Park

We are having join us Jane Rogers.

Jane is superintendent of Joshua Tree National Park, a park that I frequented when I lived in Southern California and was a scout leader.

We used to do camping trips out there and have a blast.

Jane, welcome to the show.

What's the breakdown between day visitors and campers?

Sure.

So Joshua Tree National Park has nine campgrounds, like 500 sites.

So on any given night, especially in the busy season, every one of those sites will be occupied.

And this is where we landed based on Price and Pawpaw, you know, little magical winks from the butterfly and rabbit fairy.

But there was also this like, To be so honest, after my dad died, I went to Joshua Tree because Patti Smith was talking about Joshua Tree in 29 Palms in something I read.

And that became my space to go to.

And I know the feeling in my soul of what it feels like to drive from LA to Joshua Tree and how my shoulders relax.

And so I wanted a space that was not too far from Nashville, but had that feeling.

And I remember one of the times that we drove out to see the land from Nashville to the farm.

But I had night vision and stuff.

So we're on top of this mountain near Joshua Tree.

And this gold ball of light is approaching from the west, and it's low to the ground.

It's coming towards us.

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The Strange Disappearance of Eric Sears On July 14, 2004, friends and recent graduates of Carlsbad High School in California, 17-year-olds Eric Sears and Ben Fogelstrom, decided to go on a camping trip together in Joshua Tree National Park.

The two of them showed up to their campsite in Jumbo Rocks and were just having a good time.

They were turned away from the San Jacinto due to wildfires.

Amnesia is also frequently reported, with users having no memory of what they were doing for several hours, or they may unconsciously replace fact with fantasy.

They can fall in and out of consciousness, slip into delirium.

It's believed that this is what happened with Eric and Ben while they were out being typical teenagers that night in Joshua Tree.

Did they get in over their heads and one thing lead to another? Did Eric die of an overdose from taking too much thinking the initial doses weren't effective or not working for him? Or was it something else altogether? Unfortunately, chimps and weeds related deaths are often a result of impaired judgment that leads to risk taking activities such as believing you can fly and jumping off a cliff or chasing a mermaid in a lake even though you can't swim.

But, like a lot of brilliant burning stars in the 1970s, Graham lived with one foot stepping dangerously close to the edge.

And he loved Joshua Tree.

Other musicians have said Joshua Tree is everybody's power spot.

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If either one of them died, the other promised, swore on their souls, that they wouldn't let the suits and the morticians get a hold of the body.

There would be no cold ground, no weeping in a stuffy church.

Whoever survived was to take the other out to Joshua Tree, buy a couple gallons of gasoline, and give them a Viking funeral out in the sacred dust of the Mojave, letting their spirit burn up and float free into the desert sky.

It's like they all rushed back, and then we made a bunch of new ones.

We went out to Joshua Tree on a day off and just hung out.

Like, dude, it was so cool.

[laughs]

... not necessarily, um, specific to Pittsburgh, but, like, you know, when you're on tour, like, what does, what does a day off look like for you? What's your perfect day off in, in a s- in a foreign city, in a different city, like Pittsburgh, potentially.

What, what are you getting up to?

So my favorite day off on the van tour was we stay at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs, and me and some crew guys had a little side quest adventure time, and hopped in the van, and drove to Joshua Tree.

Drove around the national park, drove up to Pioneertown, had some beers, ate.

Cosmic America is a philosophy of music that goes all the way back to Graham Parsons.

Grant Parsons, of course, was a co-founder of the Flying Burrito Brothers, played in the Birds, had two slept-on solo albums, and then sadly died of a heroin overdose at Joshua Tree National Park in 1973.

But he... was constantly fighting this idea that his music should be put into genres.

And he would be asked, like, what genre does his music belong to? And he would always say cosmic American music.