The Road to Twentynine Palms

This weekend, Jane and I made a trip into the high desertlands of the Mojave. A close friend and fellow Navy physician will be stationed at Twentynine Palms for the next two years, and we tagged along as she and her boyfriend (who'll be staying put in Irvine for the next few years) scouted out locations for possible homes and got a feel for this lonesome but beautiful land. We've had other San Diego-area Navy friends who've been moved to "Twentynine Stumps" before, and while the area sizzles brutally in the summer and tends to be overrun with Marine culture (more tattoo parlors and barber shops than sushi bars and bookstores, unsurprising as the base is the largest in the country), the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park lies just up the rising hillside of the Morongo Basin, the stars burn brighter than any other place in Southern California, and the mysterious Kelso Sand Dunes rest a hour's drive north. That is to say, for all the drawbacks, this is country living of the kind that's difficult to find in the San Diego - Los Angeles area. And after sitting in traffic along State Route 91 through Riverside - ranked one of the most polluted and sprawling cities in America, and nothing more than endless corridors of foreclosed McMansions and RV stores - decamping to the high desert sounded pretty good (at one point, glancing with horror at the empty "townhouse condos" overlooking the clogged freeway, an electrical plant and several ATV warehouses, I remarked that "Riverside is where the armpit of America runs out of deodorant." I also said something along the lines of, "If this is what destroyed the economy, than the economy deserved to be destroyed." Sitting in the back of a car sometimes boosts philosophizing abilities).

At any rate, we drove through the several neighborhoods scattered among the scrublands and lifting up into the hills, looking for hints of rental units that might boast the two important characteristics of any desert home - charming exterior, air-conditioned interior. While I'm a sucker for the geodesic domes, something tells me our friend will be quite satisfied with a compact, tidy and cactus-strewn desert cottage. Jane requested a bougainvillea bush somewhere in the front yard. Our friend's boyfriend recommended she take up rock-climbing. We all agreed a season's national park pass would be an important first step.

In an utterly shameless act of consumer overkill, on the drive back from Twentynine, we celebrated the Easter holiday with the rest of Riverside and Orange County by hitting up the Cabazon Outlets along the 10 Freeway, a first for me. The folks at Burberry were quite kind.