I wake up to slightly cloudy skies, which is more polite than the typical blazing sun that makes a tent uninhabitable after 7h30

I've been needing some extra sleep, and I got some. I slept perfectly last night, but am still tired. Yesterday's warmth cooled down to a perfect comfort level during the night, probably around 60F. My water is almost cool this morning!

I refill my empty bottles from my water bag, have breakfast, and start out on today's hike across the fan to the Kelso Peak area

I still feel a bit of yesterday's slight heat sickness. I'm not hungry for breakfast. I force myself to eat the usual granola, dried fruit (pluots and pineapple), and tamari almonds. However, my cool Starbucks Via coffee and vitamin C drink go down nicely

As I start hiking across the creosote-bush scrub, a fluffy winterfat bush (Krascheninnikovia lanata) catches my attention

I saw a few of these on my way up Kelbaker Road yesterday, but none as fluffy as this one.

I hike past a small patch of yellow flowers, which seem to be goldfields (the tiny ones) and tidy tips, the larger ones

A single fiddleneck stem rises on the left side of the photo. I didn't know that tidy tips and goldfields grow in the Mojave, so I'm not sure if my observation is correct.

I hitch up with an old road (now closed in a Wilderness area) and follow it toward Kelso Peak

Even though Mojave National Preserve has almost no official trails, none are really needed given the number of old roads that can be followed (and cross-country desert hiking is usually easy too).

I've seen several of these so far today: probably Krameria erecta (Range Ratany)

I like how it looks at first glance like a pile of dead twigs. I probably wouldn't even notice it if it didn't have flowers on it!

On the way to Kelso Peak, a few joshua trees are scattered across this area dominated by creosote-bush scrub

I have several low hills go climb up and down to get over to a particular wash that penetrates into the Kelso Mountains.

I start seeing the occasional Beavertail Cactus (Opuntia basilaris) in flower

This little guy is growing in the meagre shade of a creosote bush.

Here's one of the many yellow flowers that inhabit the Kelso Mountains area: Cooper Dyssodia (Adenophyllum cooperi)

Apparently this plant doesn't smell very good, but I didn't brush up against it to notice.

Looking behind me past a patch of indigo bush toward the Beale Mountains on the other side of Kelbaker Road

Way off in the distance is the Mid Hills and its campground, my destination tomorrow.

Another view behind me from a garden patch I'm passing through

Cactus, pink buckwheat flowers, and more... The day is still a bit cloudy, so it hasn't warmed up as much as I was expecting. I like this, since my energy is still a bit muted from yesterday's heat.

I pick up an animal trail leading toward Kelso Peak after the old 4WD road fizzles out

Like most animal trails, this one disappears after a short distance, then reappears.

I arrive at the unnamed wash leading into the Kelso Mountains which I had targeted on my maps and GPS

It's a bit wider and sandier than I was expecting.

I climb down into the wash and start walking up into the Kelso Mountains

There are a lot of footprints in the sand, but it looks more like animal traffic than human footprints. In places, I detect faint tire tracks, which shouldn't exist here, given that this is a designated Wilderness area.

A big patch of paperbag bush (Salazaria mexicana) in the wash leading into the Kelso Mountains

The textures, lines and dots are fun to look at; a photorealistic painting of this would probably look non-representational.