MOJAVE / JOSHUA TREE DAY 1 - MOJAVE DRIVE

3:30am alarm. Where are we? Oh yea, Airport hotel at EWR. Crashed here to make the first flight to Vegas. New tech security lines mean our face gets us through security. Nice touch. United delivers us safely and early, but that mojomentum is all eaten up by the hour long line at Avis. Loaded into our luxxy Toyota Crown, synched onto CarPlay and we hit the desert highways. It’s been too long since I’ve taken baby driving and it’s time to rectify that.

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It’s a short stint to the California line, and we’re watching civilization shrink at each subsequent exit. We pull off at the Whiskey Pete’s exit, home to a sprawling, abandoned casino complex with an inexplicable Castle theme, a mall with exactly one remaining open store, a silent amusement park, and some of the worst food choices we could have imagined. Marginal Starbucks turkey sambos in crunchy paper bags will have to make do as trail provisions today.

The next exit is for Mojave National Preserve and we are the only car for miles on the desert road this Thursday morning, dust billowing up behind us as the tires crunch on gravel. We stop for the first landscape pix, the pure blue sky in sharp contrast to the dry terra.

It’s another 30 minutes until we make the Rings Loop / Hole in the Wall trail head. Water bottles filled, we start the 1.5 mile clockwise hike. Five minutes in we come to the Petroglyphs, writings on the stone face which have withstood the centuries partially thanks to the lack of rain which could have potentially erased this ancient whiteboard.

Just past the glyphs the landscape opens up to a broad swath of desert with a mountain backdrop, all under dramatically striped blue and white sky. One particular peak catches our attention as a great ape’s head keeping eternal watch over this scared place.

Half way around the circuit, we enter the main event, the narrow passage formed at the intersection of 3 mountains. The rock faces are laced with holes like good Swiss cheese, hence the Hole-In-The-Wall name. The holes are of all shapes and sizes and are oddly peaceful and inviting, providing a respite of shade from the blazing sun.

The far side of the semicircular space appears to be a dead end, but as you get close, there’s a steep narrow crevice dotted with steel pegs, each peg dangling an equally sturdy ring, hence Ring Loop Trail. It’s pick and pluck, a slow grab, step, pull process to ascend the 30 foot high passage. Mandy does well, but I’m a bit awkward trying to climb while simultaneously trying to protect the camera dangling from my shoulder.

Mandy almost makes it to the top of the second ring loop pass, but the guy who installed the rings was my height, not hers, and forgot the top one. She backs down and sends me up for the assist on the last step.

We glug down some water and climb back into the already dust covered Toyota and finish the drive out the other side of the park and onto the highway. After a stretch navigating around the plethora of semi trucks, we take the exit for the Mother Road, the legendary Route 66. One day we’ll drive the entire length of 66 in some vintage car, but today only affords us about 20 miles into Amboy, California. Along the way we stop at the Guardian Lions, a pair of 15’ cement yard decorations - dragon-like lions - randomly plunked in the desert about a quarter mile apart. The story of their purpose and person has been long lost, but the figures soldier on.

We know we’ve hit Amboy when we catch site of the Roy’s sign. Shuttered since the 1980s, this iconic Cafe Motel harkens back to the height of the old-timey road trip boom in the 1940s and 50s. The abandoned cottages and well preserved lobby are a playground for modern day motorists seeking a glimpse of what passed for glamorous and exotic in eras past. We’re in no rush as we take way too many pictures in our attempt to capture the scene.

Leaving town, we stop on the side of the road to photograph the towns other main attraction, the Amboy Crater. It’s a very symmetrical volcanic crater that photographs as a black lump in a brown desert.

In the long, desolate stretch through Amboy, South Amboy and beyond, the Crown may or may not have been going 110 in a 55 while I was explaining the game Doubles to Mandy. She was just happy the speed limit wasn’t 65. Civilization starts to come into focus at the end of the Wonder Valley as we near 29 Palms where tiny homes called Jackrabbit Homesteads start to dot the landscape. After WWII, these plots could be purchased for $10 to $20 per acre provided you built some sort of structure on them. Unfortunately, the desert is a cruel environment, and most of these structures were left to crumble. We later learn that many of these old structures are used by squatters, while others are still used today as escape cabins for Los Angelinos.

We ride through the town of Joshua Tree and make Yucca Valley around 3pm. I could use a beer and Mandy does a quick search. We have our cards with us, so the nice bartender at the Yucca Valley Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks Lodge 2314 welcomes us in. Our Elk brethren are friendly and chatty, and Laura uses some extra elbow when she pours Mandy’s tasty glass of Pinot Grigio. Crunchy salty snacks hit the spot and Mandy second pour gets her just the happy amount of tipsy.

We pull into the Westin resort in Palm Springs, the time share one with the golf course and 3 pools. And we’re rejected. We must be at the one down the street, the one with the golf course and 3 pools. We’re rejected there too. Did we really make a reservation? They send us to the property 10 minutes down the road in Palm Desert, the one with the golf course and 3 pools. We’re getting plungy and stop at McPoser’s Irish Pub for some genuinely unremarkable grub, then hit the Albertson’s supermarket for some room supplies. Fortunately, when we get to The Westin Desert Willows Villas (not kidding, that's really the name), there’s a nice room to put those supplies in. And there’s a golf course. And 3 pools.