BigWeather's Blog

We woke up early and finished packing, heading to breakfast at the Inn around 8:30am. We had pretty much the same thing we did the day before — oatmeal and granola. Around 10:30am we checked out. We couldn’t find a person to checkout with and wanted to buy two t-shirts with the 29 Palms Inn logo on them. While seeking out someone I ran across a lady from Austin who commented on my Flying Frog Brigade shirt. She said she was in a band with a dude who was opening for them on their current tour. Turns out that she and the other lady there were in a band together as well. Unable to find anyone to take our money we just left it in an envelope under their keyboard. Here’s hoping they got it!

We headed west on US-62 to Yucca Valley, passing a horrendous wreck in Joshua Tree where a car was cut entirely in two. From Yucca Valley we went north then west through several valleys via CA-247 before coming across I-15 at Victorville. Next we went along historic Route 66 past a Emma Jean’s Holland Burger Cafe and a graveyard for retired planes off to the west. A short distance down the road at about 1pm we arrived at Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch, a small but very densely packed area with hundreds of rebar trees with glass bottles as “leaves” as well as other sculptures and objects. Despite the omnipresent heat there were a few trees offering some shade, allowing Michelle to relax at a picnic table while I walked around and took pictures. That wasn’t enough to stop my phone from overheating and requiring me to let it cool off before being able to take more pictures. Annoying, but I get it, it was blazing. Just before leaving a lady from Los Angeles (not more than 50 miles away) asked where we were from. She said this was her first time out this way and she’d always wanted to see it. Crazy, she lives so close!

After about a half hour we headed back on the road to Barstow and drove the first (or last?) mile of I-40. A few exits later we drove the short distance north to Yermo to eat at Peggy Sue’s 50s Diner. It was OK, I guess. The original diner was still there but only a small part of the sprawling compound of expansions over the intervening years. Michelle had a BLT and I had chicken fried steak. It wasn’t as good as the one at John’s Place in Twenty-nine Palms, that was for sure.

We hopped on the highway (I-15 this time) and immediately hit a traffic jam. We were stuck in it for only ten miles but it took two hours. Turns out it was because of a lane closure of no more than a hundred feet and nobody was even working it on the road that day! Some cars were overheated on the side of the road — 110F+ heat with no shade. Breaking down in that part of the country can be a life-or-death experience. Free of the bottleneck we passed the odd exit for Zzyzx Rd., stopped at a rest stop, and the thermometer at Baker. As soon as we passed from California into Nevada there were casinos, cheaper gas, and even a couple of amusement parks. In under an hour we were back in Las Vegas and turned in our rental and took the shuttle (even catching a glimpse of the Sphere as a basketball due to the WNBA All-Star game) to the airport. We made it to our gate with about thirty minutes to spare before boarding — whew! We picked up a quick bite to eat — a cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese for Michelle and an Italian sandwich for me — and were in the air before we knew it.

The flight was largely unremarkable. Michelle and I synched our watching of the first few episodes of Ghosts (US, not UK) and I watched a few other minor things. As we were approaching Raleigh it got quite turbulent and, upon landing around 4:40am we were greeted by our first high humidity in a week. We felt so… hydrated. Addison picked us up shortly after 5am and we were home shortly after before the bottom fell out and it rained heavily for a few hours. An unexpected, but not unwelcome, end to our fun adventure!

We woke up a bit earlier, not wanting to miss breakfast at the Inn this time so that we could get an early start. Arriving a bit before 9am we dug into a reasonably healthy breakfast. Michelle had oatmeal and tea and I had granola and cranberries and brown sugar. As we were finishing a lady started chatting with us. She was on holiday with a friend of hers from the UK. She was very much a free spirit and was originally from New Mexico but currently lived in San Diego. We talked about many things — she was able to out-talk me which is impressive! After an hour or so we excused ourselves and headed out for the day’s adventure. So much for that early start!

We headed south through Joshua Tree with a stop at the Cholla Cactus Garden as the last time we were passing through it was late and the light wasn’t great. Sadly the bees were still there but I was still able to enjoy seeing a lizard or two and got some better pictures. It was blazing hot, however, so I headed to the car in short order. Despite our precautions a bee got in the car. I opened to let it out but then I felt a slight vibration near my right armpit. I kept as calm as possible and got out of the car and took off my shirt, liberating the trapped bee. I put my shirt on carefully, leapt into the car, and we continued south.

We stopped at the Cottonwood Visitor Center right at noon and enjoyed the exhibits there a bit more than at the other two as these were focused more on the geology, fauna, and flora. We also picked up a shirt or two. Hitting the road again we exited the park, crossed I-10, and headed to the Salton Sea. The road to the town of Mecca (at the head of the Salton Sea) ran through a canyon and was quite pretty. As we approached Mecca we entered a region of concrete irrigation canals and cultivated palms.

Lunch options were slim and we ended up deciding on what I thought was a local burger / Mexican restaurant. As we pulled up and noted it was in a travel plaza we thought about going somewhere else but we were pretty hungry. We should’ve moved on and taken our chances. The place was called Chelo’s Burger. Michelle had a burger (with sauce that she had asked be left off) and fried zucchini sticks (that weren’t awesome) while I had some tacos al pastor with rice and beans. We shared some fries with carne asada and cheese (and massive slices of avocado — puke) that was middling at best. Not our best lunch, that’s for sure.

Back on the road at around 1:30pm we drove east and south along the Salton Sea. The sea had at various times existed and subsequently dried, its current incarnation actually a result of a failed attempt to divert water in the early 1900s. It was actually a popular resort destination in the 50s through early 70s and several towns with motels sprang up as well as sport fishing. The lake started to shrink in the 70s with more efficient irrigation keeping water from being discharged into the sea. That plus previously pesticide-laden discharges led to an increasingly saline and toxic sea. Fish kills happened in the late-70s and by the 80s Los Angeles, quite a distance away, was sometimes subjected to toxic dust storms from dry sea bed contaminate soil being blown that way. So, yeah, Michelle was like “why are we seeing this?”

May she was right — it was definitely barren, not super beautiful, and hot. Blazing hot. On the other hand the area attracted people that were a bit out there and there were some cool art things to be seen. We pulled into Bombay Beach, one of the more famous resort towns back in the day, and drove toward the sea. We passed the Ski Inn, the lowest bar in the world (Salton Sea is nearly as low as Death Valley’s Badwater Basin). We got to the beach and I got out while Michelle left the motor running. There was a pickup truck a good football field away but I could smell the weed even at that distance. As I took pictures he asked “Hot enough for you?” and where we were from. I told him and he motioned me toward the car. I’m like “I’m good” and got back in our car.

Next we drove back toward the highway, passing abandoned motels covered in graffiti and the odd art installation. One that stood out was a pile of TVs with screens spraypainted as if they were on to various shows. Saddest to me were the number of older people shambling around in 115F heat just surviving. Likely people that bought into the area when it was a resort area thinking it’d be a great place to retire. Yeah, about that.

We continued down CA-111 for a bit with only the long Union Pacific trains that paralleled the road to keep us company. Finally in the town of Niland we left the road and turned east into the desert a few miles to Slab City where Salvation Mountain awaited, arriving around 2:45pm. Thankfully they had port-a-potties which both Michelle and I were able to take advantage of. You’d think the shade afforded by them would be a blessing but it was actually worse. A port-a-potty at 115F may just be the closes to Hell-on-Earth we’ll ever see. Which is ironic as it was at Salvation Mountain, an art installation praising Jesus. The mountain itself wasn’t so much a mountain as a sandy hill covered painted in garish colors but it was still neat. In front of the mountain there was even the suggestion of waves and the ocean. Additionally there were several old cars decorated and painted. Somebody was taking a ton of pictures of a lady in front of the mountain but I have no idea how they could tolerate the eat. A few others chatted with one of the volunteers that watched over the place — she was sitting on a lawn chair under a bit of pre-fab roofing.

As hot as it was we didn’t linger — we got back in the car and drove towards our final destination of the day, stopping only to take a picture of graffiti of aliens in a saucer. Around the southernmost extend of Salton Sea, about fifteen miles from the border with Mexico, we passed miles-long cattle “farms”. It was almost enough to make me go vegetarian seeing them packed so tight in 115F heat. Sure, there were sprinklers misting them and such but they looked miserable. It was very sobering. We continued along the western shore of the lake and headed west on CA-78 through Ocotillo Wells State Vehicular Recreation Area — an area for ATVs, dune buggies, and the like. We stayed firmly on the paved road, however, but even there there was some fun to be had — big dips in the road from time to time. They did have a nice rest room area which was awesome. It was around this time that we hit our highest temperature of the trip — 118F. To be fair, however, Death Valley was even hotter that day but we just weren’t there to “experience” it.

We got to Borrego Springs around 4:30pm. It is known mainly for the hundreds of large metal sculptures strewn about the town and surrounding desert. I’d seen them referred to as the Galleta Meadows Sculptures as well. The sculptor’s studio wasn’t that far away and the person that owned the majority of the land back in the day bought many of his sculptures, scattering them about his land. Eventually it was donated to the public to enjoy. While some of the sculptures could be reached just off the paved road many required driving a bit off-road. While initially a bit reluctant we warmed up to it. The first ones we saw were T-Rexes fighting as well as Raptors, even one with little eggs. There were Ocotillo plants all about as well as lots of scraggly bushes.

We also saw impressive sculptures of massive birds hauling off livestock, horses, elephants, and the like. Further north in town there was a giant grasshopper fighting a scorpion that made my inner Ray Harryhausen very happy. Most impressive of all, however, was the massive serpent that was easily hundreds of feet long and twenty-five feet high.

Around 6pm we headed east back toward Salton Sea and continued to go around it via CA-66, coming upon Mecca once again and heading back through the canyon road, over I-10, and back into Joshua Tree National Park. Right around dusk we saw two Bighorn Sheep! Sorry for the blurry picture, at 30x a phone just can’t do the job. This was literally the only time on the trip that I missed having a “real” camera. We continued driving on and around 8:15pm the sunset was beautiful so I was able to snap a few pictures.

We left the park and were in Twenty-Nine Palms but sadly the restaurant we wanted to go to was already closed. So we ended up at a local fast-food Mexican restaurant called Castaneda’s that was at least better than lunch. Michelle had a chicken wrap and chips and queso. I had a carnitas burrito that, while good, didn’t live up to the one we had in Baker a few days back. Satiated we headed back and packed a bit before falling asleep.

We woke a bit late and were worried we’d miss breakfast. I walked to breakfast around 9:50am and, yep, missed it. As the inn was largely empty and there hadn’t been anyone to breakfast for an hour or more they had put up the food a little ahead of 10am, the normal end of breakfast. We took the opportunity to go to a new place, Cactus Trails Cafe in Twentynine Palms, around 10:30am. Michelle had bacon and fried eggs over medium with peaches and toast as did I (with hashbrowns instead of peaches) and we shared a large side of… chipped beef and gravy (S.O.S.)! We’d never seen it in a restaurant and just had to try it. Very tasty!

Leaving breakfast around 11:30am we drove the Joshua Tree National Park Visitor Center in Twentynine Palms that focused on the culture of the the various tribes that called the park home. It was informative though the people staffing it were a bit grumpy. Around 12:15pm we headed to 7-11 to fuel up and buy four liters of water for the day. We entered the park and instead of going straight toward the Cottonwood Springs (south) entrance we turned right onto the loop road.

Along the way we made several stops, of course. The loop was entirely in the Mojave Desert, which is higher, so the lots of Joshua trees. Also the rocks were the tan lumpy variety more often than not. We saw a rock called Skull Rock which I guess vaguely resembled a skull. I took a picture of a mother and her teenage son as they were awkwardly trying to prop their phone and set a timer. There were also quite a few rocks used by climbers that had amusing route names like “A Cheap Way to Die” and “Right On”.

We went through Sheep Pass but alas no sheep were to be seen. I took some pictures of larger Joshua trees as we approached the Joshua Tree entrance of the park, taking a U-turn and going back the way we came on the loop road towards Twentynine Palms. Along the way we took the road up to Keys View, arriving around 3:30pm. Like Dantes View it was a bit higher in elevation and brought a welcome drop in temperature and a nice breeze. After a short walk a vantage point afforded views of Palm Springs, the Indio area, and the northern part of the Salton Sea. Unfortunately the bees were here as well but I was able to avoid them for the most part thankfully.

Back to the road we completed the loop and exited at the Twentynine Palms entrance. As we were getting hungry we decided to go straight to dinner rather than back to the room and risk falling asleep and not getting out in time to get a decent dinner. We decided on pizza at another restaurant that Malcolm had recommended — Rocky’s New York Style Pizza — around 4:45pm.

Michelle had a barbecue chicken, bacon, and pineapple pizza with tea while I had a garbage pizza with root beer. While the crust was OK the rest of the pizza was really great. Toward the end of our meal a couple of members of a band were practicing and decided to do America’s “A Horse With No Name” including the “plants and rocks and things” line. Just perfect given the setting just outside Joshua Tree National Park.

After dinner we headed to Cold Stone Creamery as I’d been craving some coffee ice cream. I had that while Michelle had a double dark chocolate in a cone. Returning back to our room Michelle relaxed while I walked around the inn’s grounds and took some pictures and enjoyed the sunset.

As was becoming typical on this trip we woke up well before 7am. I don’t know if it is not adjusting to the new time zone (three hours earlier), or being used to cats gently (and not so gently) prodding us to get up and feed them, or what, but it happened every morning. In this case, however, it was likely due to the morning light shining through the yurt’s skylight (through which we could see stars last night) and landing on the bed.

The yurt was very comfortable. The bed was soft (though a footboard kind of cramped me a little) and directly below the skylight was a bean bag-like chair that could unzip into a bed. The wood throughout had beautiful designs and there were prayer flags over the entrance door and a beautiful blue cloth over the headboard. There was a sink in the room with potable water as well as an air conditioner, dresser, and a few tables. The floor was concrete and there didn’t seem to be any gaps between the tent’s canvas and the slab that could let critters in so that was good.

We got up, packed, and took our outdoor showers. The shower was nice, all things considered, and had privacy screening. I couldn’t help thinking, however, that surely some desert critters would like to come get some of the water that dripped off the edges of the concrete pad. Luckily none were seen! At 9:30am we hit the road and stopped at John’s Place on CA-62 around 10am for breakfast. It was a traditional American diner and quite good. Michelle had French toast, eggs over medium, and bacon. I had chicken fried steak (with white gravy!), eggs over medium, and hashbrowns. Additionally, we had a side of biscuits and gravy and unsweetened tea. All great!

Satiated, we headed west to the town of Joshua Tree and the National Park Visitor Center there, arriving around 11am. It was small but there were some nice shirts and magnets as well as a few displays talking in particular about the music connection. The Joshua Tree on the back of U2’s album of the same name was just outside the east boundary of Death Valley National Park — we probably drove right past it — and a post-Led Zeppelin Robert Plant allegedly fell for a lady from Twentynine Palms. Allegedly his 1993 song “29 Palms” is about that time.

We then drove south a few miles through an area of nice homes to the actual entrance of the park and upgraded our entrance pass from Death Valley National Park to an Annual Pass. Though it wouldn’t quite pay for itself with Joshua Tree National Park it’d start saving us money with our next one (provided we visit before July — I suspect we will). As we had other plans for the day we turned around and back the way we came, this time seeing a coyote in the middle of the road!

Back in Joshua Tree we headed west on CA-62 a short distance to Yucca Valley then turned on to some pretty roads through desert canyons to Pioneertown, a small village and still active Western set, arriving right at High Noon. In its heyday in the 40s and 50s many TV Westerns were filmed there like Cisco Kid and Gene Autry’s show. Now it is more often used for music videos and the odd movie. Braving the heat we parked the car and walked onto the main thoroughfare. On either side were Western-looking buildings like stables, a saloon, etc. They had legitimate businesses in them like pottery, gifts, clothing, etc. as well as a tiny “Film Museum”. Sadly the main store that Michelle wanted to check out was closed. We did end up buying a magnet and a metal Joshua tree so that was nice.

As were getting a little hungry we ended up eating at The Red Dog Saloon. I ordered a tea for Michelle and myself a ginger beer. The tea wasn’t really drinkable and the ginger beer definitely wasn’t what I expected (and may not have been). We also ordered some chips and queso with carnitas. That serving size was tiny. To say we weren’t impressed is an understatement. Oh well.

We hopped back in the car and headed down CA-62 through the Morongo Valley (including a quite steep and windy stretch that was very much like Old Fort) until we hit I-10. We went west on that until we saw the giant green T-Rex and Brontosaurus in Cabazon around 1:45pm. We entered the rear of the Brontosaurus and climbed a flight of stairs to the cool gift shop within. They hadn’t any magnets! The sales lady, however, was great and we enjoyed the dioramas of dinosaur eggs and the ancestors of Man that lined the edges. One could pay to go up into the head of the T-Rex but it looked like quite the climb and cramped so we passed. There was also an attached “dinosaur park” with animatronic dinosaurs notable mainly for being in one of Pee-Wee Herman’s movies. We passed on visiting that as well, hitting the road and heading east on I-10 around 2pm.

As there was a traffic jam on I-10 we diverted onto CA-111 and entered Palm Springs. Rich people and golf courses. We hopped back onto I-10 past the traffic jam and got back off near Thousand Palms where we drove past the oases at Coachella Valley Preserve. Sadly they were closed but I was able to take a few pictures. We headed back to I-10 and headed east to the south entrance of Joshua Tree National Park. Traffic was pretty congested but moving along, the main issue is that there was a fairly gradual but very long climb and the trucks (and there were lots of them!) couldn’t maintain speed. We eventually got off at exit 168 and turned north into the park via Cottonwood Springs Rd. around 4pm.

The southern and eastern part of the park is at a much lower elevation than the northern and western part. Consequently, the park straddles both the Colorado Desert at the lower elevations and the Mojave Desert at the higher. The Colorado Desert supports very different flora from the Mojave — nary a Joshua tree to be seen but a number of yucca, cholla (a small very fuzzy light green cactus), and ocotillo (a deciduous tree that sprouts leaves when it rains rather than by season and resembles multiple tall (6’+) spindly branches attached at the base).

We visited the Cottonwood Visitor Center just as it was closing but availed ourselves on their clean facilities. The rangers were having issues locking the main door and even set off the alarm, haha! In this part of the park evidence the ancient Pinto Culture dating back to 9,000 years ago was found in the 1930s. The terrain was quite dry and marked by expansive washes from flash floods. The hills resembled more piles of small rocks than slabs of granite.

Farther along we came to the Cholla Cactus Garden around 5pm, an area of nearly 170,000 cholla cacti. It was quite beautiful and I got out to take pictures. Unfortunately when I returned there were hundreds of yellow jackets and bees swarming under our car (and the other car — the park was not crowded). They were attracted by the shade and the puddles of condensation from the cars’ AC. I wasn’t able to enter the car but rather had Michelle meet me a hundred feet away in the parking lot, evading most of the bees. Yay!

In addition to natural sights there were some ruins of old mines. We continued north and gained elevation, entering the Mojave Desert. Joshua trees started to appear and the rocks went from dark-brown and block small boulders to light tan large lumpy boulders. We exited the park in Twentynine Palms and drove to the adjacent 29 Palms Inn, arriving around 8:45pm. The inn was built in 1928 and consisted of a retro lobby area with an attached courtyard pool with brightly colored walls and beyond that a bar / dining room area. The rooms consisted of separate buildings of two or three rooms apiece, some backing up to the park and others to the Oasis of Mara that ran through the property.

We had a pleasant chat with the guy in the lobby, Malcolm. He had lived in Jacksonville, NC as his was a military family (and Twentynine Palms itself is near a very large Marines training base). He recommended some restaurants and directed us to our room. Our room was Buffalo Burr, in a building with two other rooms at the edge of the park. It had its own private courtyard, a bedroom, a small hall, and a bathroom. It was quite nice with a old red ceramic tile floor.

We unpacked and relaxed until about 7:30pm then, as we were getting hungry, headed to The Rib Co. A family owned barbecue restaurant (recommended highly by Malcolm) we knew we were in for a treat as soon as we got out of the car and sniffed the air. The cook had a giant barbecue in front of the restaurant upon which he was cooking everyone’s meat. We went inside and ordered. We both had tea. After some corn muffins Michelle had a huge Cobb salad and I had a ribeye with mashed potatoes and a dinner salad. Though a little pricey the service and food were both excellent. We headed back to the room around 9pm and lounged around before heading to bed.

We woke up early and after showering headed to the breakfast buffet around 8:30am. We had low expectations and it failed to meet them. The oatmeal was… red-ish. The scrambled eggs were quite dry. The sausage was OK at best. The toast wasn’t too bad, however, and we were able to eat enough so that we weren’t too hungry. For $21 a piece though we’d hoped for something more. Oh well.

We packed up and headed out just before 10am. As there was nobody at registration Michelle just left the keys on the desk. We got gas at the adjacent station then returned to see if someone was at registration. There was, and they had our keys, so yay.

We headed south down Badwater Rd. towards Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the western hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. On the way we passed the fancy inn in Furnace Creek, perched upon the hillside and surrounded by gorgeous palms. A short distance down the road we turned onto a non-paved (not dirt, really, more like compacted salt) road and drove a bit over a mile into the valley itself before arriving at a cul-de-sac in the middle of a feature called the Devil’s Golf Course, termed because only the Devil could play golf there. It was an an ancient lake bed, now salt pan, and had some quite large (bowling ball and larger) salt formations. Parts of the area were the pure white you’d expect but a good bit was various shades of gray.

After finishing with the Devil’s Golf Course around 10:30am we headed farther south to Badwater Basin itself. By this time the temperature was a very scalding 116F so we didn’t spend long. We did, however, see a pool (fed by an aquifer) and lots of salt formations. That pool obviously had a very high salt concentration and that is how it got its name — in the 1800s a donkey refused to drink it and the owner called it Badwater. It stuck. In addition to the sign proclaiming that the basin is at 282 feet below sea level there was a marking on the hillside that showed sea level. It was waaaaay up there (nearly a thirty story building’s height!).

Heading back north just after 11pm we peeled off to the right onto one-way Artists Road on the way to a feature called Artists Palette. The road was quite windy through narrow canyons with large dips — including points where until the car hit the crest we couldn’t see the road beyond. About mid-way through the nine mile drive we came to Artists Palette. The surrounding hillside had hues of brown, light green, and yellow mixed with the usual brown and tan. Gorgeous!

Back on Badwater Rd. we drove back to the inn and turned to the right and then back south again, this time on the ridge that overlooked the valley floor where we had just been. Around noon we arrived at Zabriskie Point, an overlook with some amazing Badlands-like terrain and beautiful examples of geological uplifting. It was a short but steep walk up to the vantage point. When there I talked with a couple about how beautiful it was and the guy reminded me that our next vantage point was special as it was connected to the movie Star Wars.

That next stop was Dante’s View, accessed via a seven mile detour off the main road. At 5,000 feet we saw the effect of elevation on temperature. With every 1,000 feet the temperature drops 5F — and at Dante’s View it was 84F as opposed to the 110sF. Breeze too! It was very pleasant. The view itself was amazing, down into Death Valley. We could see Badwater Basin, Artists Palette, the Devil’s Golf Course, and even all the way back to Furnace Creek where we had stayed the night.

The view was used in Star Wars when Luke and Obi-Wan were looking down upon Mos Eisley and the famous “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy” line. We’d later learn that some of the other places we’d visited were used in Star Wars and Return of the Jedis — the dunes from yesterday when R2-D2 leaves C-3PO in the Dune Sea, Artists Palette for the R2-D2 in the canyon scenes, Golden Canyon for the shots of Tusken Raiders with a Bantha (really an elephant they brought) just before Luke gets attacked (though his scenes were filmed in Tunisia), and Twenty Mule Team Canyon near Zabriskie Point for the road leading to Jabba’s Palace in Return of the Jedi. Amazing!

There was also a plaque describing the effects of Las Vegas (120 miles away) and Los Angeles (150 miles) on the night sky — even in one of the remotest places in America it is hard to escape light pollution. Another interesting plaque described the Amargosa River that flowed from near Beatty southeast along the eastern edge of the park, hit an area of dunes south of the park, then flowed the opposite direction (northwest) through the valley itself (though only in the rainy season).

We continued down CA-190, exiting the park and turning on to CA-127 at Death Valley Junction. We proceeded south through Shoshone and several other no-stoplight “towns” and past Dumont Dunes (the dunes that forced the change in direction of the Amargosa River). During this drive we also saw some Joshua Trees.

Around 3:30pm we arrived at Baker on I-15 and ate at Los Dos Toritos Restaurant, a Mexican restaurant. It was really great! We both had brewed unsweetened tea. Michelle had cheese enchiladas with beans and rice, I had some tasty asada tacos, and we shared a huge carnitas burrito with red sauce that was superb. The carnitas were very flavorful and were fried lightly crispy. After our meal I walked across the street to get a better view of the world’s tallest thermometer (I didn’t verify it but the town of Baker seemed pretty insistent that it was in fact the world’s tallest) while Michelle waited in the car.

We crossed I-15 and continued south on Kelbaker Road into Mojave National Preserve, a beautiful area of desert with mountains, dunes, etc. We did come across an accident where a car had likely lost grip on the hot road (at these temperatures the asphalt was quite soft) and had flipped. They were receiving aid and luckily looked OK (but that car wasn’t driving away from there). We got to the town of Kelso and there was a Union Pacific train stopped dead on the tracks preventing us from proceeding. With no path around the obstruction and needing the restroom we considered turning back to Baker but that was nearly an hour back the way we came. There was a train depot, however, and despite being closed due to a broken AC it turned out they had restrooms outside that were operational (and clean!). By the time I was through and had chatted with a few folks about the train it started moving just after another train blew by (so it was likely single-tracking). I hustled back to the car in time for us to continue on our way, yay!

Farther south we crossed I-40 (yep, our I-40) and turned right at a Josha Tree sign absolutely plastered with stickers and headed into Amboy. There was a motel, Roy’s, there that Neil Peart of Rush stayed at several times on his motorcycle trips but it had long since closed. The attached gas station was still open but it was a bit dire and the facilities were just porta-potties. It being around 6:30pm and with still a while before we’d arrive at our stop for the night we hit the road quickly and continued down Amboy Rd. and finally into the town of Twentynine Palms. As it was nearly dusk and we wanted to get to our destination before nightfall we stopped at McDonald’s and grabbed what you’d expect (sweet tea, burgers, and fries) through the drive-through.

Heading back to US-62 and up Lear Ave. we arrived at 28 Palms Stargazing Yurts at 8pm. Our Yurt had a gold painted door and Michelle’s name on a placard so we were able to quickly locate ours. Erin, our hostess, drove up on her golf cart and, after a friendly conversation, ran us through some of the peculiarities of yurt living — mainly duck on entry (even Michelle had to duck!), how to use these cool solar-powered “fairy lights”, and how to operate the outdoor BioGas potty and the shower. We had seen little one-room shacks all along the road into town and asked her about them. Not habitable because of a lack of sanitation and clean water but used as a mining camp shack. Also, the town had closed down most of the privately owned camps like her yurt camp and had them get licensed and re-zoned. As she was one of the first to pass the process she had a leg up on the competition.

Michelle and I sat on the picnic bench in front of the yurt as night fell and enjoyed our dinner and the slight breeze, making it tolerable despite being still around 100F. As the sky darkened and the stars started popping out around 9:30pm we moved to some chairs. I installed some Astrophotography software for my phone and propped it on the chair for the four to ten minute exposures while we enjoyed seeing so many stars and the Milky Way. The software also had a mode where it’d show the location of constellations, etc. as the camera was pointed in different directions. Around 10:30pm or so Michelle went to bed but I lingered until moonrise at 12:30am.