A few miles from Carlsbad, we turned onto a quiet desert road to car camp for the night. I drove slowly over the rough dirt road next to a natural gas pipeline until we were high above the highway and, more or less, out of sight. It was a night of tossing a football on parched cactus-laden grounds, sitting on camp chairs with our heads turned to the stars while sipping cold beers from a cooler, and watching the sunset turn a desolate brown landscape into one filled with vivid colors.