A Week In The Desert

i started out on my birthday, and drove down to bakersfield, where i saw merle at the fox theater and then headed east for a week in the desert.

febuary 13th, 2008 bakersfield, ca

2/14/08-the front page of The Bakersfield Californian

that afternoon, before the concert, there was a dedication ceremony for the hag. he doesn't look too happy about it-does he? merle haggard is the bomb! as my brother marty said: "he is a master. all-time supermaster." russell said he always plays kern river when he drives up from L.A.

thanks for the show russell, "i thought about you."

click on pictures to enlarge



kern river bank / near lake isabella, ca

once, kay & lucy & i spent an afternoon boldering here on our way back from death valley. i remember kay sitting on the rocks and drawing. she said the other day it was because her knee was bad. now it's my bad knee that keeps me up here looking down at the river.

kern river bank-2






kern river bank-3






route 178 east of lake isabella, ca

heading east out of town. got stopped for speeding but the cop let me off with a warning. i was wearing the death valley cap that jim gave me for my birthday, so that must be why.

route 178-2

there's a cow in there for jessie.





kelso depot / mojave national preserve, ca

when the east mojave scenic area became part of the national park service, the ranger station was in a little room beneath the world's tallest thermometer in baker. now they've restored the old kelso depot and moved the ranger station down there.




kelso depot / postcard

kelso dunes

mojave national preserve, ca

leonard and i spent most of our time in the east mojave before it became a national park. off leash & on the loose. there were a lot of cows & desert rats & dirt roads. now there's a lot more tourists, which is good i guess. . .or not.

leonard's grave site / in the baker hills

mojave national preserve, ca

we always stayed at the bun boy motel across from the mad greek in baker. leonard liked to sit out by the front door and watch all the people going into the quick stop next to the parking lot. i sat at a table pulled up in front of the sliding back door, looking out at route 15 and the baker hills on the other side of the highway. we'd go over and climb those hills. leonard would start slipping near the top, so he'd lie down and wait for me.



baker, ca / postcard

—Gateway to Death Valley—

"the world's tallest thermometer towering 134 feet. the height symbolizes the u.s. record set in nearby death valley on july 10, 1913."

crossroads of the mojave. route 15 from southern california to las vegas. kelbaker road south to the mojave preserve, joshua tree and the salton sea—and the beautiful route 127 north to tecopa hot springs, shoshone and death valley.

cloud shadow on route 127 from baker to shoshone

the only ride more beautiful than the road from baker to shoshone is the same road going back down to baker.

route 127 from shoshone to baker

rv campground / tecopa hot springs, ca


from the journal-american:

drinking my morning coffee and the green tortoise pulls up. a lot of weary looking travelers wandering around. i remember carol's stories about her trip across country in the old green tortoise. everybody sleeping on the floor and making out and breakdowns and waiting for repairs. the new buses look a lot slicker now. i'm hoping terri will show up at the baths this morning so i can find out where her campsite is. the baths used to be free but some corporation bought the place and now they charge $5 a day. everybody's very upset about it. the campground used to cost $10 and now it's $12, including the baths, so it's not much different for me, but for all the snowbirds camped out in the desert, it's huge. leonard and i once climbed up that big hill across from the campground. we were just sitting around like this, drinking our morning coffee and i said: let's go climb that hill leonard, and we did.

2/15-6:30am





badwater road / death valley national park

driving north from shoshone. this is my favorite road into death valley.





sunset at sunset rv overload

death valley, ca

president's day weekend and all the campgrounds were full, but the overload had room. surrounded by huge bus sized campers & no picnic tables so i'm writing a letter to jess with my mac sitting on the back bumper of the big red. they have WIFI over at the furnace creek ranger station. after sending the letter, i ate the worst meal ever, at the coffee shop. . .don't ask.

moonrise / pahrump, nv

stopped off for a little blackjack before heading over to dodge city.





terri's campsite at dodge city

in the hills between tecopa hot springs and shoshone ca

terri and her dog, thyme, set up camp here for a few weeks every winter. their yurt back in colorado is pretty much snowed in. terri said that a lot of hippies used to camp in these hills and that's when it became known as dodge city. they cleared everybody out a few years ago but she still always camps around here. finding her off-road campsite was quite a challenge.

breakfast at dodge city

terri making the coffee.




sunrise at dodge city






coyote at dodge city

a young coyote comes around and watches them every morning. thyme used to bark at her but he didn't seem too interested when i was there. she sits on the ridge above the campsite and then crosses over to another ridge and watches us.

sunrise from zabriski point

that's telescope peak where the sun first hits. it's the highest peak in death valley. from dantes view, you look across at telescope and, on a clear day, at the sierra nevada mountains beyond. directly below is badwater, so you're looking at both the highest and the lowest places on the continent.

sunrise from zabriski point-2

sunrise from zabriski point-3

the great thing about national parks is the access it gives to people who can't really get into the wild. you can drive right up to the edge at dantes view and you can get to zabriski point in a wheelchair. people who complain about paved trails should be taken out and shot in the knee.

wildflowers / death valley, ca

on the road to stovepipe wells.




wildflowers-2 / death valley, ca

yellow linanthus

linanthus aureus—for sissy—wish you were here to see this with me.





stovepipe wells / death valley, ca

spent the night here in a warm room with a shower & a table. pretty luxurious after being confined to the big red through some long cold nights. the WIFI was down but they have a "club room" with a couch & TV. —ah, wilderness— i was asleep by 9:30, after sitting out on the porch, watching a couple of wireless model airplanes circling way up overhead. i thought they were real planes at first, but finally figured it out.

route 190 to the panamint valley

leaving death valley, heading west toward lone pine & mount whitney.





the panamint springs road

you can almost see the panamint springs resort where the road goes into the hills. in january when jim & jessie were on their desert trip, jim sent me an email on his iPhone from there. the cell was out of range but they have WIFI so he could email. i used to need phone cards to check in with pilar at home. now the 21st century traveler only needs an iPhone. . .how cool is that?

panamint butte / leaving death valley

". . . We simply need the wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to it's edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope."
—Wallace Stegner—
The Place No One Knew: Glen Canyon on the Colorado by Eliot Porter

the east sierras from route 190

the sierra nevada mountains

roadside rest stop on route 395

leonard was born in these mountains at the kings canyon lodge. i always think of him when i'm driving on 395, especially in the winter because he loved running around in the snow. i thought about taking his ashes down to kings canyon but we only went back there once, on a trip with ellen, when he got to play with his sister. mostly i remember him in the east mojave and the baker hills and at tecopa. so a week in the desert is always a week with leonard.

sunset in the sierras / on the road

heading north to south lake tahoe where i stopped in at harrah's for a little more blackjack. wandered around till i found a $5-single deck table, bought $50 worth of chips, ordered a coffee and settled in. the chips were gone in about 15 minutes and i fled before my coffee had even arrived—got back in the big red and drove on home. up and over the mountains through a little snow and a lot of rain. 13 hours from panamint springs to rutherford.

at midnight, in placerville, a stop at denny's for sentimental reasons and the coffee i never did get back in tahoe. it was just me and some guys sitting in a back booth singing "my wild irish rose" in 4 part harmony, very softly, so you could barely hear them. "well, i think i can make it home now," i said to the waitress. "oh i certainly hope so," she answered. . .on the road.

early evening / mono lake, ca

mono lake was the most beautiful shade of blue but it was too dark to get the color. mono lake and owens lake are both miraculous to me. all that beautiful water back again, after it had been stolen away. we used to have a "save mono lake" bumper sticker on our pickup truck back in the 70's, and damned if they didn't do it. owens lake was once so large that it went all the way over to death valley. then for years it was just a big empty dust bowl. now it has water again too.

power to the people—right on!!

late evening / mono lake, ca

i didn't want to leave, but it was getting dark and cold and i still had the mountains to cross before the snow started.

thanks to all the people who gave me the $$ to take this great birthday trip, and encouraged me to go, even when i was so sad that our friend bill had just died. thanks to jim & jessie—the best kids in the world—and sissy, my sweet baby sister, and my friends, russell & pilar & kay & ellen. i love you all. . .as bill would say.

and thanks to bill, who spent his life changing the world for us and making it ever more beautiful. i don't know how we'll carry on without you bill, but i guess it's like beckett said: "i can't go on. . .i'll go on."




bill wolf's website

russell's legacy page for bill