To the Desert is the eighth installment of Finding My Way Home. To view the previous installment, click here. If you wish to start from the beginning, click here. This is the ongoing story of the six years I spent as a vagabond photographer.

Having accomplished a flying one-day trip to Yosemite and back, and a nice afternoon visit with my daughter, and the local wildlife refuges in between, I’m done with California’s central valley. On to the desert! I’ve made arrangements to stay in Mojave, California which appropriately enough, is in the Mojave Desert. The RV park is an oasis of trees surrounded by the treeless desert, making it a popular spot for the birds. It’s become routine for me to Google birding hotspots whenever I arrive in a new area. This is how I discover the little-known, curiously bizzare story of California City.

In 1958, a Columbia University professor turned real estate developer purchased eighty-two thousand acres of land in the Mojave Desert with a dream of making it into a city larger than Los Angeles. Using mostly his own money, he built miles of paved roads in a grid pattern, and a twenty-six acre central park, which included a man-made lake and waterfall. Ultimately, his dream fell way short of his ambition when the people didn’t come to the desert. While California City is an actual town today, many of the original buildings, as well as the park, have fallen into disrepair and decay, leaving it as essentially an “occupied ghost town.” If you look on Google Earth, you can see the grid pattern of the endless streets in the middle of the desert that never materialized into neighborhoods with houses. A 2010 piece in the LATimes tells the story in more detail. The Wikipedia page for Califonia City is filled with references of the history of the place, but you really cannot imagine the strangeness of it until you see it for yourself. Standing on the shore of the artificial lake, gazing at the delapidated, decaying, graffitti-covered shell of what was once a Holiday Inn on the opposite shore, you can’t help wondering if this is the future of humanity’s wildly arrogant folly. It feels like being in a post apocalyptic movie scene. I went there for the birds, but I came away with an unsettling experience of how it turns out when people execute bad ideas on a massive scale and then just walk away.

After the uncomfortable and somewhat creepy experience of California City, a nature trip is in order. To the north of Mojave is Red Rock Canyon State Park. This place is pretty lightly visited, as far as state parks in California go, but home to some of the most interesting rock formations I’ve seen. It also happens to be covered in wildflowers, since I have arrived in the desert at just the right time. Desert tortoises live here, but the chances of seeing one in the wild are quite rare. I have to settle for watching the captive pair in their enclosure outside the visitor center. These fascinating prehistoric creatures live from fifty to eighty years and spend about ninety-five percent of their lives underground. The Red Rock Canyon State Park contains some of the last protected habitat of desert tortoises.

While I am in Mojave, I get in touch with my long-time friend Diana, who lives in Long Beach, south of Los Angeles. Sadly, I let her know that I will be heading east from here and will not be passing near where she is. To my delight, she says she wants to come to Mojave for a visit! She makes the drive out and spends the night. We have a great visit and our dogs have a good time together. Diana loves birds almost as much as I do, so we have great fun watching and trying to identify the birds in the RV park. Meanwhile, Chris was planning to catch up with me at the next stop, Shoshone, California, but he decides to meet me here instead. So, he gets here a little while before Diana leaves and they also have a chance to catch up.

One of the reasons Chris has decided to join me here rather than Shoshone is because I could not get in to the RV park there as soon as I wanted. It seems the place is popular with snowbirds who come for the winter and they haven’t left yet. I manage to get a space for a week, but not until after the beginning of April. It turns out driving from Mojave to Barstow (where the turnoff is for Shoshone) on a Friday is not a good idea. It’s very weird to experience bumper to bumper traffic like a city in the middle of nowhere in the desert. I later learn that Interstate 15 is the main route from L.A. to Las Vegas and Fridays are the busiest day. What a relief to reach Barstow and turn off the busy interstate onto the laid back two-lane.

Shoshone Village, California is a unique little enclave at the southern end of the Amorgosa Valley on the edge of Death Valley. The place is literally an oasis in the desert, named after Shoshone Spring, which is a refreshing natural spring bubbling up in the otherwise parched and desolate landscape. The spring provides habitat for birds and other wildlife, some endangered or threatened. It’s here that I see my very first Phainopepla. It’s an elegant bird with a fun name and the only silky flycatcher species found in the United States. The spring’s ponds and wetlands were nearly done in by development and agriculture over the years. But now, the habitat is on the rebound, thanks to the granddaughter of the town’s founder, who has spearheaded efforts to restore and preserve the unique habitat and species of the place. This includes the Shoshone Pupfish, once thought to be extinct.

Being a big fan of national parks, I’m very excited about my first visit to Death Valley. However, the wind has been relentless. It blows dust like a sandblaster across my face and makes photography tough by obscuring the landscape. Once the wind calms and the dust settles, we set out to explore. The most surprising thing to me about Death Valley is the vastness of it. We spend more than seven hours in the park and barely see a tiny corner of it. Plus, it’s only April and it’s already uncomfortably hot. It is a fascinating and unique place, unlike any I’ve ever seen before. I decide that I need a more substantial visit to this place. I will have to wait for a better time to return to the desert. This also reminds me that I am anxious to get to Zion before the weather gets too hot. My first visit was in the month of August a few years prior. Although I really enjoyed the park, the heat was almost too much to take. This time, I want to hike more and enjoy it. I plan to spend a month in the area so I can explore beyond the national park, too.

But first, Luna hasn’t had a chance to swim since we left the Oregon Coast. We will spend a week on the shores of Lake Mead where a labrador can do what a labrador must.