It kind of freaked me out not to be able to see objects that looked like they couldn’t be more than half a mile away. It made me think of a dust storm, except without the storm. Just as forbidding was the distance we had to travel until the skyline became plainly visible again. I’d say a good fifty miles? At least the people in southern California don’t (and can’t) deny the reality and the scientific implications of air pollution. Now, if only there were some way to produce usable energy without having to burn fossil fuels! Oh yeah, that’s right:
We drove by this wind farm as we passed Palm Springs on our way to Joshua Tree. It was actually the second wind farm we’d seen on our trip. Apparently, 1.5% of California’s electricity comes from wind power, which sounds pathetically low, but is actually the highest percentage of any state in the US (not bad for a state which also happens to accommodate the greatest population as well). And these turbines are also completely privately owned, so apparently… get this… you can actually make money producing renewable energy! Well, at least someone is.
One note about the wind farms, though, which a photo cannot really convey: When there are a hundred of them or so, layered row upon row, all rotating in sync, they are quite mesmerizing. This wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if they weren’t located along a major highway, an optical siren song, inducing less-resolved drivers into a glazed over expression, veering off into the hypnotic vortex of whirling blades. Just like Odysseus, we managed to make it through unscathed, but only by focusing all my cognitive strength on mentally reciting the illustrated tone scale I had learned from this Scientology poster in the window at the Dyanetics studio in Santa Barbara:
Thank you L. Ron Hubbard!
Around sixish, we arrived at a campground called Black Rock, on the northwestern corner of Joshua Tree National Park:
We quickly learned that summer is the off-season in the Mojave Desert. Out of 99 campsites, about five were occupied. So having spent most of our trip surrounded by lots of other people, it was a pleasant surprise to be at such a beautiful and isolated spot towards the end of our trip. Up until that point, I didn’t even know what a Joshua Tree was. Here’s one:
Before long, the sun was already settling in close to the tops of the rocky hills in the west, and we took a lovely stroll along a sandy trail just beyond our site as the temperature dropped into the balmy mid-80s, moderated further by a nice mild breeze. It felt pretty amazing to be so alone in such a calm, wild, desolate yet very beautiful land. And each time the wind died down, the silence was tangible.
Back at camp, we just enough wood leftover for one last campfire of our own:
We settled comfortably in for the night with a clear view above our heads of stars that normally lie much lower in the sky, just tired enough to ignore the furtive rustling sounds of desert critters scampering around our tent.
Come morning, Sarah was treated to a close-up encounter with one of these critters when she stopped down to the restroom to brush her teeth. I took this with the telephoto, so we weren’t close enough to set off his rattle:
We then set off on the road through the park to check out some of the rock formations Joshua Tree is famous for. These boulders of feldspar-rich rock, called monzogranite, are the remains of igneous intrusions formed millions of years ago by magma pushing its way up through cracks in the much older (as in 1.7 billion years old) black and white swirled metamorphic rock above, which in these photos has long been stripped away.
For most people, though, I suppose they’re just some really cool, big rocks to climb around on. And I’m totally OK with that.
Further and further south we drove, hopping out of the car at random intervals to snap a couple shots of these strange trees.
The higher elevation terrain gradually gave way to the lower, drier Arizona Desert, which is actually its own distinct ecosystem, with flora and fauna different than those of the Mojave. The southern portion of the park doesn’t have any Joshua Trees whatsoever, due to the severity of the hot, arid climate. From a lookout point above, it looks something like this:
Off in the distance, midway across the expanse of the valley, the San Andreas Fault is just barely visible, marked by a hilly ridge, where the North American plate grinds across the Pacific plate at a rate of inches per year. I was dismayed to learn that we had already driven right across the famous transform fault without even realizing it! As a geology teacher, I was very disappointed in myself! Those damn windmills!
But it is in the austere, barren landscape in the above photo that we found ourselves on our way out the south exit of the park. It certainly was beautiful to look at through the windows of our air-conditioned Kia Spectra, but we decided we had taken in enough of Joshua Tree that stopping for a hike through the afternoon heat would have been a little superfluous. True to form, however, the possibility of an extended desert trek seemed to become more and more likely as we realized (yet again) that our gas tank had a less-than-desirable volume of fuel remaining. Having passed through several small towns on our way into the park from the north, I expected to see a gas station or two as soon as we exited from the south. But as the miles continued to pass, it became evident that the bare desert stretched on miles past the park borders.
Sarah was driving, and I put on a mask of serene confidence, assuring her that we’d make it no problem, even when the gaslight lit up and the needle came close to bottoming out. We asked Cate Blanchett for some help locating the nearest gas station, which she gloatingly revealed was 25 miles hence, in a town along the Salton Sea called, oddly enough, “Mecca”. Our pilgrimage through the desert, however, was involuntary, and we were seeking something a little more carbon-based (and more flammable) than submission to the will of Allah.
Continuing to feign assurance that we had nothing to worry about, I silently watched Cate Blanchett’s mileage countdown, continuously doubling the number to calculate how many miles I’d have to walk to get to the station and tote a gas can back to the car. A (very very long) half-hour later, the gas needle weighing as heavily as seemed possible, we had pulled up to the ironically-named “Beacon” gas station in Mecca. We let out a collective sigh and marveled at the benevolent will of the oil gods, who had forgiven our oversight and come to our aid once more in our time of need. I’m sorry, fossil fuels, for anything bad I’ve ever said about you. Drill, Baby, Drill!
-Josh
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