Joshua Tree National Park, California

Feb 16, 2006

Amar returned from the conference about 12:30, while I spent the morning looking for motels to stay, car rentals and other logistics to conduct the ensuing ‘wild trip’ where we don’t know what the next destination would be. After frittering away a lot of time, it dawned upon Amar that we need to get out of that place in the next 5 minutes. That is his usual pattern and something I am quite prepared to handle now. So I stayed cool. In the flurry of plans, confusion and indecision, Amar sets out on his mission to check-out of the Town and Country conference hotel and to figure the nearest rental car location that’s accessible on foot. After a while he returns, jaded and even more confused and we end up waiting for a certain someone form Enterprise Car Rental to call us. After waiting for a while, we realized the stupidity of waiting inside a hotel room in San Diego for an car rental rep to call us. So, we agreed that we must take some action. The adrenaline pumping up Amar’s veins as a result of ‘things not happening’, manifested in his reconnaissance attempts of stepping out of the room and looking around in the hope that he would be able to spot an Enterprise Car Rental somewhere in the vicinity. The desperation reached the zenith in a barrage of swearing words in Hindi and he finally concluded in a ‘I think I will take a nap’. After that brief period of madness we decided to be more reasonable and leave our bags at the bell desk and go look for the car rental that is supposedly across the street from where we were at then. After walking for a little while we did manage to find the car rental office almost sort of in the making.. inside another hotel nearby. It was hilarious to find a perfectly dressed sales rep handling the business of the day in the perfect form and manner in the back drop of an office in the making…carpenters, electricians and all that menagerie. Anyway, we finally picked up the car at about 4:00 pm, a red chevy in a rather deplorable condition. For the rest of the trip, Amar would always demonstrate the different cling clangs of the car when turning, braking, parking, or speeding. Now, me dreamy as I am, I forgot my camera charger in the hotel room and happened to remember that just in time before starting out on the trip. So, we had to drive back to the hotel. I was surprised but Amar somehow managed to quieten his excited nerves that predict doomsday on occasions like this. So, we drove back to the hotel. Now, I walked up to the front desk and explained the situation. The lady at the desk made few calls and assured we will hear back from someone shortly. While I waited there, Amar decided to walk straight up to our room. Anyway, someone from the hotel’s room service department entered the room and found the charger where I had left it. Now, she finds Amar loitering there and gives the charger to him. She then calls up the lady at the front desk and expressed , perhaps with a sense of gratification of a job well done, that she has handed the charger to some guy who happened to be present there. The lady at the front desk almost stutters with rage and says that the guest, that is me, is waiting at the front desk and that it is I who is the rightful owner. Just at that moment Amar calls me and says he has found the charger. I figured what happened and thanked the lady at the front desk saying I found the charger. I could see a perplexed face at the desk who I finally excused myself from with a ‘have a good day ma’am’!
So, that was that. Now we were in the car, our bags in the trunk, a tank full of gas, ‘1942 Earth’ playing in my IPod and no plans for what should be the next destination. As Bob Seger would say “Say, here I am, on the road again. There I am, up on the stage. Here I go, playing star again. There I go turn the page”. These lyrics always set my mood whenever I am out on a road-trip. So, after much discussion we drove to Point Loma to smell the Pacific and see the evening sun disappear in the vastness of the ocean. Before we reached Point Loma we stooped at a convenient store to buy maps for we knew we wanted to go to Joshua Tree National Forest but we did not know where it was located. We first picked a map of San Diego local and could not locate it on the map. We then asked people around inside the store. An overly helpful asian gentleman suggested we call 411 from our cell-phones for help. He generously described the entire process right from dialing 411 to what questions we need to ask and we generously and blankly nodded our heads in the perfect harmony of an orchestra. We finally figured that we need a map of California to locate Joshua Tree. So that solved that problem. While coming back from Point Loma, we stopped at another convenient store to buy a flash light given that the chevy had no functioning light bulbs in the interior. A rather withdrawn Iraqi shop owner expressed to us, his despise and contempt for a hedonistic America that does not know and does not care where is Iraq after all, in the map of the world. Anyway, he donated his 1 mm diameter light to us from his key-chain because he never uses it and because he did not sell flash lights. Of course, the reason why he did not use that light was because he could not use it, in fact no one can put it to any good use it was so tiny. However, we accepted his gift of help in the most polite and grateful manner.
We drove up to Old Town in San Diego downtown from there. We decided to spend some time there and drive half-way up to Joshua Tree Park that same night. Old Town San Diego happened to be the birth-place of California, not that this fact mattered but just a moment of awe struck me as the juxtaposition of Old Town and present day rich California brought out the stark contrast and along with it, heroic tales of a heroic journey. Anyway, we just walked around the streets of Old Town, lights and music and a feeling of antiquity livened up our spirits. A serendipity was this museum store of collectible masks from Africa – Aladin Stores was the name I think. The masks took me back to Pablo Picasso’s painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon of five naked prostitutes in a brothel two of them wearing African masks. The masks hanging in that shop were grotesque and beautiful the grotesqueness almost felt like a measure of the beauty of the stories they were crying out loud. Anyway, the owner of the shop was a rather suave African American who gifted me a Kenyan (masai) bracelet made of bones and reprimanded Amar because our 4 year long affair had not yet culminated in the wedding ring. I must admit, that stranger’s words brought a tear in my eye, first because I am an emotional bundle of nerves and second because this has been a recurring topic of our discussions for so long a time. Later, Amar gifted me a beautiful red rose. I trusted the stem was not broken because I saw him buy it in front of me. Anyway, we stopped for food at a Chinese place and set out on our road trip. We decided to drive up to the point where we turn on I-15 for Highway 79. We wanted to save the rest of the trip for the next day morning because it was marked as a scenic drive on the map. That night we stayed at a motel on Highway 79.

Feb 17, 2006
Next day morning, we started off from the motel at about 10:30 am. The previous night’s food was an early branch for us. The Gujrati owner of the motel gave us a bag full of Tulsi seeds from the Tulsi plants growing in their court-yard. We drove for a while on Highway 79 and had planned to stop by the hot springs areas marked enroute. We took a detour in <> Indian reservation and drove quite a while inside till we saw a golf-course, a casino and a resort.. so much for finding Indians living in toupees! We drove back and stopped at one place where there was an SUV parked and a little rivulet was flowing underneath a short bridge. The rivulet appeared quite out of place in the middle of this desert. We figured it might lead us to the hot springs if there is any. We followed the trace of the rivulet for a long time. We came across an abandoned structure of something that looked like a kiln. Here is a picture of Amar looking at the mouth of the kiln. Here is another picture of me crawling out of the klin that deceptively looks like a cave in that picture. We also spotted empty boxes of ‘ammunition’ and perhaps human hair lying along the rivulet that did not look very savoury.. However I was fascinated with the idea that we walk along the rivulet in expectation of locating the hot springs or the source of the water and find a remote Indian village hidden amidst mountains and vales. At such moments when I get carried away, Amar’s pragmatism comes to the rescue. So, we left the place.
We drove further on 79 and spotted a factory outlet mall that had a Bose store. I am not particularly fascinated by gazettes but Amar wanted to take a quick look. We ended up spending few hours in the mall and bought shoes from the Timberland store there. We realized we were quite late into the afternoon to be able to do anything useful in the park today because it was almost 2:30 pm when we left the mall. We stopped on the way for lunch once again in a Chinese place. We also drove back a little bit to inquire if we could rent dirt bikes at this motor-bikes show room. Unfortunately they only sell and do not rent them. The showroom had a WWII Harley Davidson on display standing proud and grand with the tragedy of a war and the pride of a fine machine just as man.
So, we drove again pretty sure there was nothing more we could do that day. We entered the park around 4:30 pm. The Joshua Tree National Park includes parts of two deserts - the low-lying Colorado desert at 3000 ft and the Mohave desert at 4000 ft. We entered the park through the north western entrance that mostly covered the Mohave desert. The Joshua trees apparently reminded the mormons travelers, the biblical tale of Joshua in supplication with hands facing heaven-ward and hence the name. Joshua or not, the tree definitely looked grotesque, twisted and bend in the most awry ways. The rocks around were broken into loose boulders of the most amusing shapes and figures. Indeed it is a mountain-climbers heaven. Here is a picture of Amar atop one such hill of boulders while the desert moon silently creeps in from behind. I must admit, we both felt transported to another planet once we entered the park. Acres and acres of grotesque looking Joshua trees, hills of boulders, the silhouette of mountains around.. the evening natural light accentuated the awry feeling. It was windy and very cold outside. I suddenly felt like running among these trees and up the boulders. It was an indescribable feeling. Amar accompanied me in this madness though he was really cold and so was I.
We were unable to decide if we should car-camp tonight with the intention of ‘roughing it out’ and also to save money. It was very cold outside and the few campgrounds neither had water nor restrooms. We decided to go for a movie in the Joshua Tree town and I also managed to haggle a good price for a motel owned by another Gujrati at 47$ for the night including taxes. This ‘including taxes’ part is very important because the ‘gujju’ haggled with me on numerous combinations of prices starting at 55$ sometimes the tax included, sometimes the tax excluded.
Anyway, we went for this movie titled ‘Final Destination’. Poor Amar stood out shivering in the cold for the line in front of the ticket-counter ran outside the building. The movie was a harrowing experience of groase death-scenes and a very sad plot. For the most part, I enjoyed my pop-corn sitting next to Amar.
We went to Carrows for dinner and made plans for the next day with our maps on the table. All this while, the surreal image of the forest with the Joshua trees in it, kept haunting me and while we made plans for the next day, I wondered if I would want to see that place any other time again and disturb that first beautiful impression now etched in my mind of the odd and the awry.

Feb 18, 2006
We decided to be serious today and started the day quite early. We had a quick breakfast of pancakes and fruits. The lady at the counter wanted a name on the order. Amar stopped short after announcing the name as Amar and changed it to Mike. Both the lady and we had a small laugh .. to Mike! So, Mike and me, sorry Amar and me drove towards the park. We parked at the picnic area near Hidden Valley and decided to hike Hidden Valley first. Here is me wearing four layers of sweaters and a ‘kaafiya’ around my head. It was very cold and windy. There was a short 1 mile loop that takes you through the cattle rustlers hideout but we decided not to take that. Naturally we lost our way. On the way we met a lot of mountain climbers. Here is a picture of Amar, inside the valley, in between Joshua trees. And here is me trying to pass through a narrow slit amidst rocks in the Hidden Valley trying to cross through. We also passed across this dragon face beautiful Joshua tree. Now, because we lost our way, we walked for a long time before we actually spotted a parking lot. We were very happy in seeing the parking lot except that the parking lot was in a dirt road in the middle of now-where. We had not many choices and started walking along one direction. After a while we reached a ranger’s station. We met some people there and asked for directions to the nearest paved road. One among those people was a kind gentleman and an art contractor who offered to drop us off at the parking lot where our car was parked. It then that we realized how far we had drifted away from hidden valley. We both were so glad we made it.
We next decided to hike around in Barker dam area. That was dam built by settlers for cattle breeding as early as 1920. It was a beautiful walk. We sat beside the lake on a rock and enjoyed our trail-mix while watching a die-heard mountain climber taming a boulder in front of us.
Our next stop was to be Keys View overlooking Ryan Mountains. That was a breath-taking view of the mountains from the look-out. The more interesting thing was Salton Sea in the middle of the desert. Later I learned that that the sea was formed by an accident when the Colorado river overflowed with heavy rains and melting ice causing the water to break a dike and flow down into the Salton sink. Apparently it washed away an entire dwelling of native American village there.
We later took this another trail walking among on a trench cut-out along the flat ground , with different types of interesting flora all around. Amar noticed some kind of a shrub that was dying and had fallen off into the cut-out trench. He remarked ‘Oh! Poor’ with such earnestness of feelings that I felt a tear-drop appear on my eye. As crusty on the outside he is as much soft in the inside. After a while we decided to return back to the car. This was our very last activity inside the park. We both had early morning flights from San Diego. So, we decided to drive back to San Diego from there and spend some time in the La Jolla area of south San Diego hoping we could do moonlight kayaking and if not just hang around there and have a ‘fucking’ good dinner as Amar puts it.
So we drove, and were debating all the while whether we should drive up to Los Angeles city walk, back to ‘Howlin’ at the Moon’ dwelling piano bar in the Universal Studios city walk or head to San Diego instead. At some point we both realized the craziness of that idea and decided to drive to La Jolla in San Diego. However, courtesy me, the wrong navigation took us very close to Los Angeles Orange County and we had to drive about an extra hour to get back on the road to San Diego. Finally we reached La Cholla around 8:30 pm, tired and shabby. Now that was a very up-scale place as can be seen from the restaurants people dressed in expensive clothes and finery. We infact felt we would not be treated fairly given that we were not nicely ‘wrapped’ that evening. But do we care. Anyway, the walk also had lot of art museums. One of the most amusing paintings I came across was that of a painter signed as Goddard who experimented with martini as the central object placed in different themes and strangely enough it landed perfectly in every single painting. Anyway, we went to a Mexican place for dinner. That night we had a 50$ worth of dinner. As soon as we stepped out we heard a band playing across the street, Led Zepellin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’. We enjoyed that from the street and walked around a little bit more.
That night we decided to sleep in the car by the Pacific beach and wake up to a rising sun by the beach in the morning. It felt very weird initially as if we were sleeping in a bedroom that is out in the open. However, very soon we got used to it and I think we both slept more or less ok.

Feb 19, 2006
We woke up to a fine morning by the shores of the Pacific in La Jolla. We had about 15 minutes to look around before we left for the airport. We spotted seals lazily lying on the shore and apparently a mother had just given birth to a baby seal and that presented visitors to step into the shore and scare the mother away into the waters. All in all, it was a very different experience to have slept all night in the car and wake up by the sea. While walking back to the car we noticed a sign that said, ‘No Sleeping Overnight’. Did someone say ignorance is bliss? We headed to the airport from there.