The Joshua Tree isn't a tree and only a vivid imagination would see these yucca plants as the biblical figure with his arms raised to heaven, but, there's no doubt they are an amazing feature in an extraordinary place.
The National Park is about evenly divided between the Colorado Desert and the Mojave Desert and we entered the park from the Palm Springs side which is in the Colorado Desert. This is California's Low Desert and the Joshua Tree doesn't grow there, but, because of recent rains, we did get to experience a desert in bloom. There were red blossoms on the ocotillo and beavertail cactus and yellow blossoms on the brittlebush and the cholla cactus. Water run-off collected on the side of the road where dune primrose had large white flowers and, in a few areas, tiny, yellow wildflowers still carpeted the desert floor. The Cholla Cactus Garden area was especially dramatic with tiny cactus blossoms everywhere.
And this abundance brought out the wildlife. Roadrunners and jackrabbits scurried across the road in front of us and zebratail lizards paid us no mind as they feasted and we took pictures. At Cottonwood Springs, birds, including darting hummingbirds, noisily went about their business.
The springs are not technically an oasis since the cottonwoods and palms were planted by prospectors and miners in the area, but at least there is the water to support one. On the other hand, the Oasis of Mara, at the northern entrance, was an actual oasis until the water dried up. Now the Park Service waters it mechanically to keep it alive.
A gradual climb into the Mojave's high desert brought us to the Joshua Trees and strange rock formations. The granite stacks are a result of chemical weathering and are quite popular with rock climbers. We saw remnants of mining operations at Lost Horse Mine and we entered Louis L'Amour country in Hidden Valley, a natural corral where cattle rustlers hid out near the Keys Ranch.
If the change from one desert to another was subtle in the park, it became very noticeable after we exited at Twentynine Palms. The Morongo Valley leads to a rapid descent from the High Desert to the Low Desert through the San Gorgonio Pass. As we curved into the Low Desert's Coachella Valley below the cloud level, we could feel the strong wind funneled from the coast. This is the site of one of the three major wind farms in California and we drove through mile after mile of these giants as we returned to the Palm Springs area.
I had been a little disappointed that the tours of the Keys Ranch in the park had already ended for the season because their story is apparently a true life western with a working wild west ranch that operated into the early '40s. But, what makes this more interesting is that, in Palm Springs, major changes to living in the desert were beginning just as this way of life was ending.
Palm Springs' Desert Modern Architecture
For those of us with deep roots in Pittsburgh, the Kaufmann name simply recalls the great department store, but Edgar J. Kaufmann is world famous for commissioning not one, but two of the greatest examples of modern architecture. Fallingwater, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, is probably the best known private residence in the world, but the Kaufmann Desert House, designed by Richard Neutra in 1947, while not nearly as famous, was far more influential, providing much of the inspiration for the development of what came to be called Desert Modern architecture.
It certainly wasn't the first of the Desert Modern style: Neutra himself had designed the Grace Miller House in 1937, but after Life magazine featured Julius Shulman's iconic photograph of the house in its April 11, 1949 edition, the architectural world took notice and the '50s and early '60s saw a major effort to provide gracious living in a harsh environment.
Today, of course, we build stucco boxes and slap on air conditioners, but Palm Springs remains the center of the Desert Modern style and the Kaufmann House continues to be occupied as a private residence. The style probably reached its peak with Frey House II, designed by Albert Frey in 1962 on the hillside above Palm Springs, where the owners most likely can see the Kaufmann House. (For a fascinating article about Neutra, Wright and the Kaufmann House, see Glamourized House).
The Anti-National Park
Just south of Joshua Tree National Park is the Salton Sea, certainly one of the strangest places on earth. When spring floods broke through the dikes in 1905, the full force of the Colorado River flowed uncontrolled into the Salton Sink for two years creating California's largest fresh-water lake with a "sea level" that was 200 feet below sea level. This soon became an inland playground for the rich and famous, touted as the American Riviera.
In the early '60s, however, the fresh-water sources were diverted leaving only agricultural run-off and water from the worlds' most polluted river, the New River flowing from Mexicali, to replace the evaporating water of the Salton Sea. The result, then, was California's largest salt-water lake with high levels of selenium and recurrent algal blooms. The subsequent loss of thousands of fish and birds gives fair warning and abandoned buildings and derelict boats tell their own story. We didn't stay very long.
Southwest of the Salton Sea, the Cuyamaca Rancho State Park is just as disturbing. In 2003, a lost hunter set a signal fire that grew into the Cedar Fire, the largest wildfire in California history. The fire burned over a quarter million acres and was so intense that, almost nine years later, there is very little natural regeneration. As we drove through the park, each new ridge had the skeletons of hundreds of dead broadleaf trees, standing with blackened branches in a truly post-apocalyptic landscape.
U.S. 395
On a brighter note, we continued our exploration of U.S. 395 back where our California adventure began. Today, 395 officially ends at Hesperia in San Bernardino County, but the route still exists as I-215 and I-15 and remnants of the old route can still be found. Unfortunately, in Riverside, just before March AFB (now ARB), the frontage road that we knew is no longer called Old 395 but Old 215. Now that's a shame. But just south of Temecula, there is an exit to the frontage road and it, at least, is still called Old 395.
We returned to Temecula where we last visited when the vineyards first started producing and things have gone well. But Old Town Temecula was the highlight this time:
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