Trona

So on Saturday morning we were expecting houseguests later that day, and we hadn't cleaned the bathrooms yet, and then they called from the road around 10:30am. They were in Lone Pine, were going to have lunch, and then they'd come on down Highway 395 to Ridgecrest. So we, in our usual irresponsible way, did not look at a map and instead said "Oh! Lone Pine is hours from here, so they'll probably get here around 4pm at the earliest." And we weren't in a bathroom-cleaning mood. So we decided to go to Trona, see the museum there, and then we were sure we'd be full of bathroom-cleaning energy. Rocket Boy called the museum and found out that they were closing at 12 and would be closed the rest of the month. It takes about half an hour to get there -- so we got ready and went!

(I'm skipping ahead here, but I just want to note that Lone Pine is NOT hours from Ridgecrest, it is 83 miles from Ridgecrest.)

Trona is a very small town about 22 miles from Ridgecrest. It is actually in a different county (San Bernardino), but the two towns are very involved with each other. The Ridgecrest newspaper has a "Trona Page" once a week. Trona, as I read on another web page, is Ridgecrest's whipping boy, and this seems accurate to me. Ridgecrest needs something to feel superior to: ergo, Trona. Trona actually used to be the bigger town, and the hospital used to be there. But now it is just the most pathetic place you can imagine, and so ugly. It is right on the shores of Searles Lake, which is mostly dry, where they extract a variety of minerals (including Trona, which is Na3H(CO3)2.2H2O). As you drive along Highway 178 toward Death Valley, you pass all these ugly buildings and equipment for extracting minerals. Huge piles of salt, or something like that, which no one seems to be doing anything about, because the company that built Trona has abandoned it, and not much mineral extraction goes on anymore, though some does. And then off to the side, the town, which is almost dead, full of abandoned houses (some for sale for very little money!), and supposedly full of meth addicts and producers. It's just awful.

But at the same time, there's another side to Trona. Rocket Boy found out that they have a Gem & Mineral Society, with regular meetings, and since he's interested in that sort of thing, he's been attending them. The meetings are held in conjunction with the Trona Historical Society, and so far the topics have all been historical, but he has high hopes. The meetings are attended by a lot of old people, who strike him as nicer than anyone he's met in Ridgecrest, and who are certainly not meth addicts or producers. One of these people encouraged him to visit the Trona museum, so that's where we headed on Saturday. We packed the babies in the car, along with diapers and snacks and sunscreen, but inconveniently forgetting their stroller, and drove east.

The Trona museum is delightful! First of all, it's free. Secondly, it's big, with I think about 10 rooms of stuff. Thirdly, it's quite interesting and funky, lots of great photos, bits of this and that, even a good collection of Trona High School yearbooks in one room. Certainly better than anything Ridgecrest's got. We were somewhat hampered by having forgotten the babies' stroller, so we were alternately carrying them and then when our arms got tired, chasing after them, and then when our legs got tired -- etc. The babies were SO GOOD at finding the one thing in each room that was both breakable and detachable. But the woman in charge was very easygoing about it all, and the boos didn't actually break anything, though not for lack of trying.

In the gift shop they had mugs and things with a road sign on them that read: "End of the World: 10 miles; Trona: 15 miles." I wanted to buy that one, but was embarrassed, so we bought one with a picture of the Trona Pinnacles on it.

Then we went to a restaurant that's in the old theatre. We were the only customers! And afterwards I felt really sick. But I'm thinking it might have been from my lunch the day before.

And then we went home to clean our bathrooms, only to have our houseguests show up 10 minutes later. As is perhaps glaringly obvious, we didn't want to clean the bathrooms anyway.