Wednesday 5 September
The journey to Las Vegas from Palm Springs may have been in
a black Mustang rather than a Red Barchetta, but the grateful anticipation was
still partly attributable to Neil Peart. My holiday reading for this flydrive
in Arizona and California had included Far And Away, the latest collection of
travelogues from the Rush lyricist and drummer, and the two day adjournment
from the driving in San Diego had coincided with his recollection of the Amboy
Crater and nearby ghost town on Route 66. An ideal
point of interest after the initial drive through the Joshua Tree National Park,
so it appeared.
A week previously, the temperature had hit 108 as the
Mustang – or should that be the horse with no name? - had taken us through the
deserts of south east Arizona. The old Wild West town of Tombstone and its well
preserved period saloons, notably Big Nose Kate’s and the welcome beer and
sandwiches, brought back some distant memories from fifteen years earlier,
while the real gem had to be the Apache Trail, somehow managing to combine a
deserted mining town, a mini Grand Canyon and the excellent Superstition Saloon
on the valley floor all into one. It certainly felt good to be out of the rain
of another washed out English summer.
Palm Springs had been uplifting in many ways, with two coming to
mind above all. The first, the aerial tramway whose destination was the near
tundra summit of the Mt San Jacinto Park. The second, Marilyn Monroe’s skirt,
preserved in Seven Year Itch fashion in the form of the 26 foot tall statue
that had formerly been in residence in Chicago and was now gracing the square
opposite Starbucks. No, this is one place where a “sheltering from the rain”
excuse is always going to fall on stony ground.
But back to the road. First up, a stretch due east out of
the town on the 111, past the hideouts of the seriously rich, their well
watered green lawns defying the desert. Shortly followed by a cruise down Interstate
10, foregoing the privilege of a pilgrimage to nearby Mecca (that’s Mecca, CA,
population 8,577), in search of the southern Joshua Tree NP entrance.
It took a while to find the first outcrop of Joshua Tree
cacti from this direction, even though there were many other by now familiar
species of cactus amid the rocks. Anyone not familiar with the Cholla (“Choy-a”)
would be in for a nasty surprise if tempted by their soft cuddly toy appearance
to go closer than common sense dictated. Let’s just say that “the thorn is
quicker than the thigh” is considered to be an entirely well founded warning.
The Joshua Trees themselves, towering twelve feet high with the outstretched
arms that led to their Biblical name, are a real sight, all the more so for
their rarity.
A brief stop in Twentynine Palms suggested that this small
town on the northern border of the park ought to be commemorated just as much
for the Mexican food at Edchadas as for Robert Plant’s song from Fate of Nations.
Feeling the heat of its desert heart, and with the horse straining against its
bridle in pursuit of the Mother Road, an hour’s charge northbound up what was
on that day effectively a private drive soon reached a T-junction where the
ghost town of Amboy lay.
The Amboy Crater itself might have justified a walk to the
rim, were it not for the heat and the deceptive distance ahead – what seemed
like a couple of hundred yards could easily have become a mile before it was
too late to turn back – so Roy’s Garage, a near deserted classic filling
station half a mile eastbound, was clearly a better bet. To say nothing of the
abandoned motel next door. And with skins having turned well red by now, we
were looking at a motel bed, where the story it told of the motel that thrived
made us sad (OK, guess the rest). Just as sad as would have been the case if
the group of German bikers, gathered round the gas pumps and obliviously
smoking alongside their machines, had accelerated the demise of Roy’s with a
discarded butt. It was indeed time to butt out rather than butt in on them.
Contrarian as it may be to really let rip along Route 66
eastbound, this was just what the beast wanted. A drive just as exhilarating as
the Seligman to Kingman stretch two years previously from which I still nursed
fond memories. Wind in my hair, shifting and drifting, mechanical music,
adrenalin surge…
Hang on, what was that about adrenalin surge? Around 10 miles
before Route 66 ran out, there were the unmistakeable signs of a storm brewing
to the north. And not just thunderclouds. An ever increasing number of lightning
bolts coming down on our left and – a little scarily – ahead. Not that there
was any point in turning back, of course, when Las Vegas beckoned with no other
civilisation in striking (sic) distance and when stopping to let it pass (no
shelter, just wide open desert) may well have been just as risky. With the odds
and effect of a lightning strike on the car pushed into a distant mental recess
for quiet reflection, the choice of flooring it may have been a bit reckless,
but…
And suddenly it had passed, the lightning bolts receding
into the distance as a brief stretch of Interstate 40 gave way to the roller
coaster of Highway 95, whose lumps and bumps amid a crawling queue on the
single lane out of California gave way to a spanking new 3 lane race track as
the border into Nevada was crossed. There’s a message here somewhere.
The time had come to let the horse run free, because the
desert had turned to a sea of neon light, air conditioning and the tidal wave
of human hearts prevailing over heads in the casinos. Leaving one final
thought. If only driving in the UK could bring even a fraction of the pleasure
it gives in the USA.
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