mojave trip - day 1
This post is part 1 of the "mojave-trip-2008" series:
This trip started off like most others when we've headed south, with the long, tedious drive, down the central valley. To add to the excitement, there was rain & darkness, since we left at 5:30AM. Other than that the drive out was fairly uneventful, and we even got some sun by the time we crossed over Tehachapi Pass and descended down into the Mojave Valley.
After a brief stop for lunch in Baker we headed back to explore Zzyzx Road and Springs. The road out there was rumored to be unpaved for the entire 5 mile stretch, however now its only unpaved for perhaps a 100ft in the middle, with the rest nicely paved & graded. For the most part, there isn't all that much to look at. There are a few man made oases with palm trees around them, and some dormitory structures, but beyond that its not all that interesting. The views across Soda Dry Lake were nice though.
Afterwords, we headed back up I-15 to the Baker exist, and drove south on the Kelbaker Road towards Kelso Depot. We quickly discovered that most preserve roads are in rather poor condition. They were potholed, rutted & generally horrible to drive. It seemed like they paved them a few decades back, and never made any effort since to maintain them. Beyond that the road did wind its way through some rather scenic cinder cones & lava beds. Upon arriving at Kelso Depot it was ridiculously windy (maybe 50MPH gusts), and since it was closed for the day we looked around briefly before getting back into the car to check out the sand dunes about 15 miles to the south west. As soon as I pulled out of the parking lot, I spotted a fox slowing trotting down the side of the road. Then another fox appeared, and the two of them were literally keeping pace with the car and staring directly at us. My guess is that they had been receiving hand outs from foolish tourists, and were expecting more.
The unpaved 4 mile road to the sand dunes was well graded, and an easy drive. However, since the wind was still crazy, we couldn't do much other than look at the dunes from the distance. We decided to call it a day, as there appeared to be a nasty storm approaching from the west. We took the Kelso Cima Road north to the Morning Star Mine Road.
All the pictures are at the usual location.
This post is part 1 of the "mojave-trip-2008" series: