So...this morning, I make another "Command Decision"...by cutting my Alabama Hills stay short, I'll have an extra few days in Tucson...where I will stay in an air-conditioned hotel and eat great Mexican food. And, by also shaving a few days off of my stays at Guadalupe Mountains National Park and Big Bend National Park, I'll be able to get my trip to San Leon, Texas (for the best grilled oysters in the world) in BEFORE the Michigan-Alabama game. This will let me start for home the day after the game (Sunday) instead of Tuesday or Wednesday.
Before I head back south on U.S. 395, I spend an hour or so driving and hiking (a bit) around the Alabama Hills. It's a surreal place...the location for many Western films and television episodes...including one of my favorites "High Sierra" with Humphrey Bogart (and Ida Lupino)...great, great film.
When I roll onto 395 at around 9:00, the temperature is already over 100. The drive gets less and less interesting...pretty soon, the cool mountain formations are behind me...and ahead, there's just desert...miles and miles of desert.
I make one interesting stop near the town of Trona, California to see "The Pinnacles". They're in a huge basin that was once a lake. The Pinnacles are composed of harder minerals than the surrounding sediment...which has eroded over thousands and thousands of years...exposing The Pinnacles.
My stop there turns out to be quite the "adventure". The Pinnacles are located about five miles off of the main highway on an absolutely wretched stretch of gravelly/muddy road...filled with ruts and potholes. Somewhere along the line, I take a wrong turn and end up five miles down another horrible rut of a road...in the middle of nowhere...in the desert. I'm amazed to meet a pickup truck heading in the opposite direction. The guy inside is, I suppose, amazed to find someone else on this road, but he gives me directions back the right way. Not , however, until I drive another three miles just to find a place to turn around.
Once I take the right "fork", it's another five miles to The Pinnacles. They are an impressive sight, but my planned one-hour stop has stretched to three hours...I'm glad to get back on the main highway.
The rest of the trip is pretty boring...miles and miles of desert with a very few tiny towns along the way and a lot of abandoned homes and other dilapidated buildings scattered about.
Around 6:00PM, I finally reach my destination...the Black Rock Canyon Campground at Joshua Tree National Park. With the temperature at a sultry 103 degrees, there are not a lot of campers in the Campground this day.
There are several tents pitched in two spots over from me. This turns out to be a very nice family from Montclair, California. They're moving here to Yucca Valley. They were supposed to close on a house here (Yucca Valley) three weeks ago, but there was a problem with the title. So...they've been camping here for three weeks. I do not know how they could stand the heat that long.
They invite me over for dinner, so I bring some beer and some chili...they share salad and ribs. All in all, a good meal with some very welcome company.
We drink some beers and talk until around 10:00PM or so before I head off to bed. Inside the camper, it is truly "sweltering"...even with the windows open and the fan on "high". It's hot and the fan is noisy...this is not going to be a comfortable night.
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