Photo Edits/Updates 12/2021

Afton Canyon

Ivanpah Dry Lake

Red Mountain

Red Mountain

Bell Mountain, Apple Valley, Ca.

Digital-Desert.com/MojaveDesert.Net — Corporate Campus

Summit Valley, Hesperia, Ca.

Inyo Mine, Echo Canyon, Death Valley

Furnace Creek Wash, Death Valley

Badwater Spring, Death Valley

We all need a place to watch the world spin . . .
Needles Eye, Echo Canyon, Death Valley

Furnace Creek, Death Valley National Park

Devil’s Playground, Soda Lake, Mojave National Preserve

Joshua Tree National Park

Providence Mountains, Mojave National Preserve

Sunrise Bungalow, Mojave Preserve

Soda Lake, Pacific Coast Soda Company 

Winterkind, Inspiration Point, San Gabriel National Monument

San Bernardino National Forest2/2010

Marl Springs, Mojave National Preserve, Mojave Road

Marl Spring, Mojave National Preserve

Last Chance Spring, Last Chance Canyon, El Paso Mountains, Cudahy ghost town, Lost 49ers

Last Chance Spring – 2010

Lava Field, Amboy Crater – 2008

Bell Mountain Summit, Apple Valley, Ca. – 1/2004

Saratoga Springs, Death Valley National Park

Bell Mountain, Apple Valley, Victor Valley, Ca. 2011

Mojave Preserve – NPS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS –


Mojave Administrative History; NPS – Eric Nystrom

Illustration 1 – Joshua tree and buckhorn cholla

Illustration 2 – Prehistoric petroglyphs at Indian Well

Illustration 3 – The 7IL Ranch

Illustration 4 – Stone walls of 1880s-era Providence

Illustration 5 – U.S. Highway 66, Essex, California

Illustration 6 – High-tension power wires and associated infrastructure

Illustration 7 – Visitor’s center for Providence Mountains State Recreation Area

Illustration 8 – Zzyzx

Illustration 9 – Four-wheel drive vehicles traveling the Mojave Road

Illustration 10 – Painted sign opposing S.21

Illustration 11 – Cross on Sunrise Rock

Illustration 12 – Solar panels at Hole-in-the-Wall

Illustration 13 – Mojave National Preserve entrance monument

Illustration 14 – Official logo of Mojave National Preserve

Illustration 15 – Buildings at the New Trail Mine

Illustration 16 – Graffiti on Kelbaker Road

Illustration 17 – The Union Pacific Railroad

Illustration 18 – Kelso Depot

Illustration 19 – NPS visitors’ center at Hole-in-the-Wall

Illustration 20 – Lake Tuendae at Zzyzx

Illustration 21 – Desert cattle

Illustration 22 – Rock walls of the military outpost at Piute Creek

Illustration 23 – The Rock Springs Land & Cattle Company trough and corral

Illustration 24 – Headframe of the Evening Star Mine

Illustration 25 – Morning Star Mine

Chaotic Heart

This red thing
This arrhythmic thing
This beating heart
Pounding and pounding, pounding
Torn from the chest and held high
in infrangible grasp
in wild eccentricity
Uncontrolled
Sacrifice
unbalanced
This beating heart
erratically pulsing wave after wave of deep, red light
& silver, dull gray, ungreen
under these painted skies
Pounding, pounding, and pounding
in wild eccentricity
This Chaotic Heart
This arrhythmic thing
This red thing



Missing Pet

Mike, the pet jackrabbit, is missing!

This is a photo of Mike bolting out of the brush after some rustling around in there and getting part of his ear bitten off and eaten or something. Mike was last seen near Salt Springs hopping across the desert in the epitome of fear and the adrenaline rush of flight.

Mike, was the family’s favorite lagomorph. They would see him during their desert travels all over the place hopping out of a bush or across their path when they least expected.

After a fruitless 3 minute search for Mike, the family left to check-in at their hotel.

“Coming out of the parking area there was a clunk noise like we hit something,” one of the children stated.

“Mom started to say something, but dad said for her to shut up,” the kid continued.

There is no reward. Only closure for the kids.

Lone Wolf Colony

Health Ranch – Apple Valley, Ca.

Lone Wolf Colony is a Historical Landmark in the Town of Apple Valley, California.

Over 15 million people were killed during World War I (1914-1918), and a countless number of people were injured. The use of poison gas as a weapon caused many of these deaths and injuries. Suffering from the effects of poison gas during some returning Pacific Telephone and Telegraph employees were unable to obtain hospitalization or other care. The Southern California Telephone Company in Los Angeles began working to provide care and lodging for these recuperating veterans. By 1924 the Lone Wolf Colony was established.

Last Season

The season of the long shadows is over. Shadows clinging to the trunks of awkward trees, cactus, brush, and the base of rocks, stretched in desperation fearing their silent annihilation in the encroaching dark.

The new season brings foreshortened versions of silhouettes from the south. They emerge from the base of the mountains and then rapidly down the bajadas and canyons and arroyos, as it were. The day is quickly painted over in unsunlight and deep twilight while a cold nether rolls across the bristly plain.

The little rat people may look out of their little rat homes before retreating into their little rat holes to do whatever it is that little rat people do there.

The cutest little adorable cottontail bunny hippity-hops cautiously down the little bunny trail to have a little bunny snack. Or to die. Little bunnies generally do not usually live any longer than the moment they learn what a coyote is.

Alas! At the smother of darkness, the coyote has completed his transformation from a lazy begging dog to a starving psychotic murderer.

Carreta

American Automobile Assoc. photo

The pretty senorita is standing next to a carreta, a two-wheeled cart pulled by mules to haul freight in early Spanish and Mexican California. The carreta could be built quickly and inexpensively. Four-wheeled wagons in Southern California were a rarity if there were any at all until the first ones rolled in through the Cajon Pass in 1849 driven by Mormon pioneers.

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