Our first stop for the Big Kahuna is in the southern desert of California. I had spent time in Southern California in the mid-1970s while going to school up the coast in San Luis Obispo. I fled Florida in the Summer of 1975 to be with my girlfriend, who dumped me about 6 months afterward π.
I was then blindsided by serendipity when my parents and younger brother moved to Los Angeles only several months after I had left Florida. Rockwell transferred Dad to the area to work on the Space shuttle prototype Enterprise. They lived in Irvine for a short period of time before buying a house in Lancaster. Lancaster sits on the edge of the Mojave desert.
I visited them many times while I was going to college. It was a reasonably short drive from San Luis Obispo to Lancaster. My brother Dave and I hung out. We made a notorious trip to Kings Canyon supposedly to do some camping. I managed to completely fuck up my Sunbeam Alpine sports car thinking I could take it off-road. I had to put my tail between my legs and ask Dad to come to get us with a towing trailer!
We crossed into California by crossing the Colorado River at Parker. This area sits south of Parker Damn. I was dumbstruck at the number of resorts and RV campgrounds along the river. The river itself was very nice with crystal clear water. Otherwise, it was 100% desert – hot and dry as a bone.
We then crossed a long, open stretch of road right through the middle of the desert. I was amazed at the sight of the mountains as we got closer to our destination. You could see a gradual rise in the sagebrush-dotted sand leading up to the mountains. Mellinia of blowing sand forming the dunes. Breathtaking!
Civilization returned as we got closer to Joshua Tree National Park. Before long it was the Califonia I remembered again. Strip malls everywhere and Jack in the Box restaurants.
The KOA here was similar to the last 3. Fairly open gravel lots with a pool and hot tub. Lots of things to keep snowbirds occupied during the winter and families year-round.
This one has three different hot tubs at different temperatures. They say it is fed by natural hot mineral wells. These seem to be everywhere in this area and must be a feature of the geography.
The KOA sits on the northeast corner of the Coachella Valley. The valley itself is dotted with wind turbines to harness the ever-blowing desert winds. Sand is frequently blown onto the highways. The highways themselves are like a roller coaster as they follow the contours of the dunes. Big fun driving in the X6!
To the southwest is the stunning Mount San Jacinto. To the northwest is equally stunning Mount Georgio. Between these mountains and Joshua Tree National Park is the Coachella Valley.
Palm Spring Air Museum
A friend had told me about the Palm Springs Air Museum. Situated just outside Palm Springs, it has five hangers with aircraft from different eras from World War II to the present day. The highlight, other than having a huge selection of modern and vintage military aircraft (many of which still fly), is a tour of a B17 Flying Fortress. I had to go! This was one of my favorite airplanes of the war – bristling with guns – to fly in a bomb the shit out of the Nazis. Maybe I can get them to drop a few on Tallahassee!
I could have spent a whole day at this place. There were dozens of super knowledgeable volunteers that knew the detailed history of the different planes. The tour through the B17 was a memory to last me a lifetime (what’s left of it that is!). I would always watch WWII movies and wonder if I had what it took to do the job that ‘The Greatest’ generation did. I guess I’ll never know.
I spent quite a bit of time learning about dive bombers like this one. I watched the movie Midway several years ago and was stunned at how the pilots would dive at a 70-degree angle to drop the bombs on the Japanese ships. You can see the airbrakes on the wings of the Dauntless above used to control the plane in its ‘drop’. Until this was developed, aircraft like torpedo bombers were notoriously bad at destroying their targets. Not the dive bombers, they had a near-perfect kill record.
The last (and newest) hanger had the most recent acquisition – A F-117A Stealth Fighter built in utmost secrecy in the 1980s by Lockheed. It was amazing to see all of these aircraft and meet the many volunteers that work at the museum.
Joshua Tree National Park
Several people in the past had mentioned to me how much they enjoyed Joshua Tree National Park. Interesting rock formations and forests of unusual Joshua trees and other odd-looking desert plants. The rock formations are a favorite for climbers and there were many places to camp in this spectacular setting. It was about a 60-mile drive from the visitor center in the northwest part of the park to the Cottonwood entrance in the southeast.
We got in right at sun up and explored the park before it got too hot in the afternoon. many of the spots featured almost comically large rocks a mere 50 feet or more in height. A literal forest of huge Joshua trees – especially on the drive to view the Coachella Valley.
The Keys View drive went west until you could gaze down into the valley below. The two snow-capped peaks of San Jacinto and San Georgio in plain sight. It was quite a view.
As we drove east the rock formations changed and eventually we were back in the sand dunes and desert again. The final stop was to view a Cholla Cactus Garden. These nasty-looking plants had a bad reputation for inflicting painful wounds whenever possible!
I only wish I was in better shape to go back and do some climbing! Quite an unusual and beautiful area.
Palm Springs
For as long as I can remember there was always Palm Springs. I guess the proximity the LA and Hollywood in particular made it a common name when I was growing up. Movie stars playing golf in the desert π€©.
The downtown area had a Key West vibe with sidewalk bars and restaurants and lots of plan trees. They had a Walk of Fame for Hollywood types that lived there.
Sonny Bono was the mayor of Palm Springs for a while. Then he hit a tree while skiing and that was the end of that π΅βπ«. At least he got a place on the Walk of Fame.
The Art Museum is a big thing which one would expect in a monied-town like this. Highlights include a larger-than-life Marilyn Monroe and a rather spooky pit filled with a red fault line and very weird sculptures. Like right out the incredible file Brazil.
I also noticed that local people will often say happy trials instead of goodbye. It was a bit before my time but the saying was made famous by local Palm Springs stars Roy Rodgers and Dale Evans. When I was very young, before anything else I wanted to be a cowboy. Seems like this was the place to be.
San Gorgonio Pass wind farm
This was one of the earliest wind farms built in the early 1980s. I had graduated college in mechanical engineering several years earlier and developed an interest in power generation including solar and nuclear but had not heard much about wind power. I traveled to Northern Europe in the early 2000s and saw some of the massive wind farms in the North Atlantic. Since then I have seen many on our 2021 Excellent Adventure. It was cool seeing so many close up like this in such a stunning setting.
Exactly two weeks to the day since we left Florida – tomorrow we head further west to San Luis Obispo. Almost exactly 48 years ago my life was profoundly and irrevocably changed when I escaped Florida to move there to live my dreams and seek my fortune. I had barely a clue what I was doing. If I had only known!
