For someone who grew up in one of the more damp, green corners of the world (Seattle, WA), I've always loved deserts. When I was a kid, I would go with my dad to Ernst Hardware Store in the University Village (back when the U Village had stores that actually sold useful stuff) in Seattle. Sometimes, if I was lucky, he would buy me a cactus or a little plant. The old man's beard cactus still sits on a desk in my parents' house, not much taller than when I bought it at least twenty years ago. So for me, deserts are pretty cool places, especially if they have cacti.
After leaving Flagstaff last Wednesday, I planned to spend a few days drifting back to the Bay Area through the deserts of Eastern California. I am glad I did. I turned off I-40 a bit further west than Needles, CA and didn't get back on the interstate until I reached Stockton yesterday night. So what did I find out there in the desert? Solitude, for one thing. Having spent the past three weeks on Black Mesa in a housing situation with little privacy that sometimes very socially intense, it was good to have some space. I had a lot of space in the Mojave. An empty, austere landscape opened before me: jagged mountains rose above sweeping plains full of Chapparal (Cresote Bush). Chapparal is a really cool plant, maybe not as exciting to look at as other vegetation in the Movaje, but it is medicinally very useful and is the oldest plant in the world. I've read that a specimen near Barstow was dated to be older that 11,000 years. Not as impressive in size as a Redwood or other ancient tree, Chaparral is a desert plant, a survivor of the extremes of temperature and wind. Speaking of wind...I spent my first night on the road at a campground in Mojave National Preserve. It was a beautiful spot: full of all kinds of cool plants like Yucca, various cacti, ephedra (another cool, ancient medicinal plant) and all kinds of little green sprouts bursting forth from recent rains. I cooked my macaroni, went to bed not long after sunset. Then the wind came: the tent flapped all night, the wind was so powerful that I didn't dare leave to pee out of fear that all my stuff would tumble away and the tent would lodge itself against one of the desert's many spiny plants. So dear reader, I must admit, I used the pee bottle that night. In the morning, as I attempted to take my stuff out of the tent, it literally blew over me while I was still in it. I left the scene, drove on, and found a less windy spot: a sheltered valley in the mountains full of joshua trees (amazing) barrel cacti and cool looking rock formations. I hunkered down in a wash to cook my oatmeal and make tea, then after breakfast rambled around the rock formations, admiring the vegetation and trying not to get stuck on an acacia or beavertail cactus. I had the whole place to myself: the plants near at hand, the expansive views across mountains, chaparral flats and sand dunes. I headed for the visitor center, where I satisfied my coffee addiction (thanks to the Dineh sheepherder who brewed huge urns of coffee during my last few days on Black Mesa, I am hooked again) and since it was my 28th birthday that day, I treated myself to a slice of pie. I drove on, north through Baker, more desolate, beautiful country of mountains, basins, salt flats, dunes, more chaparral.
That afternoon I reached Tecopa, a parched hot springs town located in an almost lunar landscape of salt pans, mud hills and multicolored mountains, just south of Death Valley. Tecopa has a number of ramshackle hot springs 'resorts' where many elderly people park their RVs and seem to spend their time either soaking in the various pools or riding their bikes between the hot springs. It's a trip. The hot springs used to be owned by the county (Inyo County--the coolest county in the world) and used to be free, but now belongs to a private company that charges $7 for an all day pass. The hot springs are gender-divided, and everyone goes nude. This is no hippy spot: average age must be 70, and an evangelical Korean immigrant from LA gave testament to me while I worked out my aches and pains in the baths. After nodding politely and thanking the man for sharing his story, I left the springs and headed to the date farm, which according to a billboard, was located somewhere a few miles south. The date farm was a real life, legit oasis. To get there, I drove down a one lane dirt road that wound through a wash between gray, lifeless hills. All of a sudden a splash of green opened before me. As I drove past newly leafing cottonwoods, willows and acacias, I spotted the rows of date palms. I imagined myself at some Saharan or Arabian oasis and I wouldn't have been surprised to see a bedouin caravan appear atop one of the surrounding hills. I treated myself to a date milkshake and bought some dates to bring back to my mom, who loves them. I'd never seen date palms before, so I spent some time wandering amongst them, reading the signs about the origins of the different varieties.
That night, because I hadn't slept well in the windstorm, I splurged on a bed in a hostel in Tecopa, where I cooked dinner inside, the first dinner I'd cooked in a kitchen with running water: how luxurious. Lentils and bulgur with some carrots and onion thrown in.
The next day: Death Valley. Past the lowest point in the US, then up into the Panamint Range where I camped at a very mediochre but free campsite in the Park and spent the afternoon hiking up a 9,000 ft peak. The lowest point in the US looks pretty darm low from 9,000 ft. It was freezing up there too, I mean, windy and freezing, but a few prickly pear cacti and ephedra hung on up there. The vegetation near the train reminded me of black mesa: lots of snow, sagebrush, pinon, juniper. It would've been a good place for the sheep, I think.
The following morning I drove down into the Panamint Valley, just to the west of Death Valley, pulled over and spent some time hiking around some hills, checking out the plants (of course), the expansive views of multicolored mountains, many still cloaked with snow, salt flats, more mountains, more plains full of chaparral. I spent a while looking down, admiring nature's artistry in the braiding channels of a dry wash below. That's one of the best part of the desert: the landscape offers itself up to exploration, to panoramas, wide vistas, solitude, a sense of the fleeting nature of human life amidst a land where the pace of geologic time dominates.
At the Panamint Springs general store, I found out about a nearby hike to a waterfall. Yes, a waterfall in the driest place in the US. I drove on a road a little too bumpy for my car to handle (I drove it anyways) then hiked a ways up a gradually narrowing canyon, a dry wash. Suddenly, all kinds of greenery appeared, nourished by running water: willows, various herbs and tons of watercress. I hiked on , the canyon narrowed and I reached the waterfall: a 6 foot drop of water into a pool. Cold, clear spring water, plenty of it. I spent time contemplating the landscape and life, and just as I left, a stream of other people arrived. This was a national park, after all.
I drove on, entering the sweeping owens valley, and the towering, snow-clad High Sierra rising above the arid plain. This is where LA gets (I mean, steals) its water. It's also where 10,000 Japanese Americans were interned at the Manzanar camp during WWII. I stopped to take pause and reflect on this unpleasant, shameful episode of our history. Only a gymnasium, now a museum, two sentry posts build by one camp resident who was an architect and builder and remnants of Japanese style gardens remain. The latter bear witness to the craftsmanship and care than many of the camps residents used to transform the landscape where they were imprisoned.
My last night I stopped at Bishop, the last relatively low (4,000 ft), relatively warm (it only got down to 35 instead of 20 at night) spot on my journey. I camped besides the rushing waters of the owens river, destined not for Owens Lake, but for showerheads and dishwashers in SoCal.
The long drive...I got an early start, so I could stop at one of the many hot springs in the Longs Valley Caldera, just south of Mammoth Hot Springs. After driving down the road a few times, looking for the steam rising in that sub-freezing high altitude morning, I eventually found my spot. Some loving and caring people had built a tub out of rock and concrete and contrived a plumbing system with a valve that sends very hot water into the tub. I mean, very hot. If one leaves the valve on too long, a person can literally cook like a crab. Maybe it was the spot they call the crab cooker...Either way, it was simply magnificent: frigid air, a wide vista of snowy peaks, hot water. After that, the rest of the day didn't really compare, even though it was pretty good: driving through the beautiful, wintry mountainous country near Mono Lake and Bridgeport, descending into the Carson Valley, then crossing the Sierras at Carson Pass, admiring the impressive banks of snow that is money in the bank for California's water supply. After spending many weeks in cold, dry country, the Central Valley seemed lush, verdant, decadent almost. Too much green for my eyes, almost. Back in the Bay, the air feels damp, heavy and flowers fill gardens, medians, vacant lots. It's beautiful being here in the spring.
I still think of Black Mesa. If you, dear reader, made it this far, you may have noticed the lack of pictures. My camera stopped working after I left the reservation. I believe this was punishment for taking a few too many shots of goats eating pinon boughs during those brief moments of sheepherding when I actually got bored. The family was OK with me taking pictures of their house and livestock, but I got a little carried away. The land can give its' punishment to those who have perhaps done wrong: Dineh and Hopi elders attribute the collapse of Lehmann Brothers to it's acquisition a few years before of Peabody Coal, the firm that operated the Black Mesa mine. Though I'm not a coal company or investment firm, perhaps I deserved my own punishment for excesses committed in a sacred place. That's my theory, maybe the folks at the camera shop will have other ideas....
I miss the bleat of the newborn lambs, the ringing of the bell tied around the goat's neck. I miss the exhuberant tail shaking of the puppy, who, when she was hungry, literally moved sideways like a sidewinder snake, almost causing me, the viewer to become motion sick. I miss the hearing the sounds of the Navajo language, me listening intently for a word I knew and reading the non-verbal cues for what was being discussed. I miss the simplicity of living in one place, and the land, which I developed a different kind of awareness of through sheepherding. But I am now looking forward to the next phases of my journey: Full Belly Farm, my family in the NW, then the UCSC farm. Thanks for reading!
After leaving Flagstaff last Wednesday, I planned to spend a few days drifting back to the Bay Area through the deserts of Eastern California. I am glad I did. I turned off I-40 a bit further west than Needles, CA and didn't get back on the interstate until I reached Stockton yesterday night. So what did I find out there in the desert? Solitude, for one thing. Having spent the past three weeks on Black Mesa in a housing situation with little privacy that sometimes very socially intense, it was good to have some space. I had a lot of space in the Mojave. An empty, austere landscape opened before me: jagged mountains rose above sweeping plains full of Chapparal (Cresote Bush). Chapparal is a really cool plant, maybe not as exciting to look at as other vegetation in the Movaje, but it is medicinally very useful and is the oldest plant in the world. I've read that a specimen near Barstow was dated to be older that 11,000 years. Not as impressive in size as a Redwood or other ancient tree, Chaparral is a desert plant, a survivor of the extremes of temperature and wind. Speaking of wind...I spent my first night on the road at a campground in Mojave National Preserve. It was a beautiful spot: full of all kinds of cool plants like Yucca, various cacti, ephedra (another cool, ancient medicinal plant) and all kinds of little green sprouts bursting forth from recent rains. I cooked my macaroni, went to bed not long after sunset. Then the wind came: the tent flapped all night, the wind was so powerful that I didn't dare leave to pee out of fear that all my stuff would tumble away and the tent would lodge itself against one of the desert's many spiny plants. So dear reader, I must admit, I used the pee bottle that night. In the morning, as I attempted to take my stuff out of the tent, it literally blew over me while I was still in it. I left the scene, drove on, and found a less windy spot: a sheltered valley in the mountains full of joshua trees (amazing) barrel cacti and cool looking rock formations. I hunkered down in a wash to cook my oatmeal and make tea, then after breakfast rambled around the rock formations, admiring the vegetation and trying not to get stuck on an acacia or beavertail cactus. I had the whole place to myself: the plants near at hand, the expansive views across mountains, chaparral flats and sand dunes. I headed for the visitor center, where I satisfied my coffee addiction (thanks to the Dineh sheepherder who brewed huge urns of coffee during my last few days on Black Mesa, I am hooked again) and since it was my 28th birthday that day, I treated myself to a slice of pie. I drove on, north through Baker, more desolate, beautiful country of mountains, basins, salt flats, dunes, more chaparral.
That afternoon I reached Tecopa, a parched hot springs town located in an almost lunar landscape of salt pans, mud hills and multicolored mountains, just south of Death Valley. Tecopa has a number of ramshackle hot springs 'resorts' where many elderly people park their RVs and seem to spend their time either soaking in the various pools or riding their bikes between the hot springs. It's a trip. The hot springs used to be owned by the county (Inyo County--the coolest county in the world) and used to be free, but now belongs to a private company that charges $7 for an all day pass. The hot springs are gender-divided, and everyone goes nude. This is no hippy spot: average age must be 70, and an evangelical Korean immigrant from LA gave testament to me while I worked out my aches and pains in the baths. After nodding politely and thanking the man for sharing his story, I left the springs and headed to the date farm, which according to a billboard, was located somewhere a few miles south. The date farm was a real life, legit oasis. To get there, I drove down a one lane dirt road that wound through a wash between gray, lifeless hills. All of a sudden a splash of green opened before me. As I drove past newly leafing cottonwoods, willows and acacias, I spotted the rows of date palms. I imagined myself at some Saharan or Arabian oasis and I wouldn't have been surprised to see a bedouin caravan appear atop one of the surrounding hills. I treated myself to a date milkshake and bought some dates to bring back to my mom, who loves them. I'd never seen date palms before, so I spent some time wandering amongst them, reading the signs about the origins of the different varieties.
That night, because I hadn't slept well in the windstorm, I splurged on a bed in a hostel in Tecopa, where I cooked dinner inside, the first dinner I'd cooked in a kitchen with running water: how luxurious. Lentils and bulgur with some carrots and onion thrown in.
The next day: Death Valley. Past the lowest point in the US, then up into the Panamint Range where I camped at a very mediochre but free campsite in the Park and spent the afternoon hiking up a 9,000 ft peak. The lowest point in the US looks pretty darm low from 9,000 ft. It was freezing up there too, I mean, windy and freezing, but a few prickly pear cacti and ephedra hung on up there. The vegetation near the train reminded me of black mesa: lots of snow, sagebrush, pinon, juniper. It would've been a good place for the sheep, I think.
The following morning I drove down into the Panamint Valley, just to the west of Death Valley, pulled over and spent some time hiking around some hills, checking out the plants (of course), the expansive views of multicolored mountains, many still cloaked with snow, salt flats, more mountains, more plains full of chaparral. I spent a while looking down, admiring nature's artistry in the braiding channels of a dry wash below. That's one of the best part of the desert: the landscape offers itself up to exploration, to panoramas, wide vistas, solitude, a sense of the fleeting nature of human life amidst a land where the pace of geologic time dominates.
At the Panamint Springs general store, I found out about a nearby hike to a waterfall. Yes, a waterfall in the driest place in the US. I drove on a road a little too bumpy for my car to handle (I drove it anyways) then hiked a ways up a gradually narrowing canyon, a dry wash. Suddenly, all kinds of greenery appeared, nourished by running water: willows, various herbs and tons of watercress. I hiked on , the canyon narrowed and I reached the waterfall: a 6 foot drop of water into a pool. Cold, clear spring water, plenty of it. I spent time contemplating the landscape and life, and just as I left, a stream of other people arrived. This was a national park, after all.
I drove on, entering the sweeping owens valley, and the towering, snow-clad High Sierra rising above the arid plain. This is where LA gets (I mean, steals) its water. It's also where 10,000 Japanese Americans were interned at the Manzanar camp during WWII. I stopped to take pause and reflect on this unpleasant, shameful episode of our history. Only a gymnasium, now a museum, two sentry posts build by one camp resident who was an architect and builder and remnants of Japanese style gardens remain. The latter bear witness to the craftsmanship and care than many of the camps residents used to transform the landscape where they were imprisoned.
My last night I stopped at Bishop, the last relatively low (4,000 ft), relatively warm (it only got down to 35 instead of 20 at night) spot on my journey. I camped besides the rushing waters of the owens river, destined not for Owens Lake, but for showerheads and dishwashers in SoCal.
The long drive...I got an early start, so I could stop at one of the many hot springs in the Longs Valley Caldera, just south of Mammoth Hot Springs. After driving down the road a few times, looking for the steam rising in that sub-freezing high altitude morning, I eventually found my spot. Some loving and caring people had built a tub out of rock and concrete and contrived a plumbing system with a valve that sends very hot water into the tub. I mean, very hot. If one leaves the valve on too long, a person can literally cook like a crab. Maybe it was the spot they call the crab cooker...Either way, it was simply magnificent: frigid air, a wide vista of snowy peaks, hot water. After that, the rest of the day didn't really compare, even though it was pretty good: driving through the beautiful, wintry mountainous country near Mono Lake and Bridgeport, descending into the Carson Valley, then crossing the Sierras at Carson Pass, admiring the impressive banks of snow that is money in the bank for California's water supply. After spending many weeks in cold, dry country, the Central Valley seemed lush, verdant, decadent almost. Too much green for my eyes, almost. Back in the Bay, the air feels damp, heavy and flowers fill gardens, medians, vacant lots. It's beautiful being here in the spring.
I still think of Black Mesa. If you, dear reader, made it this far, you may have noticed the lack of pictures. My camera stopped working after I left the reservation. I believe this was punishment for taking a few too many shots of goats eating pinon boughs during those brief moments of sheepherding when I actually got bored. The family was OK with me taking pictures of their house and livestock, but I got a little carried away. The land can give its' punishment to those who have perhaps done wrong: Dineh and Hopi elders attribute the collapse of Lehmann Brothers to it's acquisition a few years before of Peabody Coal, the firm that operated the Black Mesa mine. Though I'm not a coal company or investment firm, perhaps I deserved my own punishment for excesses committed in a sacred place. That's my theory, maybe the folks at the camera shop will have other ideas....
I miss the bleat of the newborn lambs, the ringing of the bell tied around the goat's neck. I miss the exhuberant tail shaking of the puppy, who, when she was hungry, literally moved sideways like a sidewinder snake, almost causing me, the viewer to become motion sick. I miss the hearing the sounds of the Navajo language, me listening intently for a word I knew and reading the non-verbal cues for what was being discussed. I miss the simplicity of living in one place, and the land, which I developed a different kind of awareness of through sheepherding. But I am now looking forward to the next phases of my journey: Full Belly Farm, my family in the NW, then the UCSC farm. Thanks for reading!
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