To get there from here, you take Highway 395 south for 47 miles to Kramer Junction and then turn left onto Highway 58. Already this was exciting, because we've never turned left onto 58. We've turned RIGHT to go to Boron, and we've gone straight through to Victorville many a time, but never left. OK, so we turned left and drove 35 miles to Barstow.
I hadn't been to Barstow since we moved here, and the first thing that struck me -- struck both of us, actually -- was how much it looks like Ridgecrest. Only worse. It's about the same size, but no Navy base. One thing it does have that Ridgecrest doesn't is a Radio Shack, so we went there because Rocket Boy needed something. But otherwise, Barstow, hmm, not high on my list of places I'd like to live.
Onward we went. From Barstow we got onto Highway 40, headed for the Preserve. We had been planning to eat lunch at the Preserve (there's a little coffee shop at the Visitor Center), but it was already noon when we left Barstow and we had a long way to go. So instead we drove 52 miles to the "town" of Ludlow, where there is a cafe.
Quite a good cafe, actually. With no customers to speak of. We all enjoyed our lunch and Rocket Boy got a piece of cherry pie to go.
Then, since we realized we were actually on the old Route 66, we decided to continue along on that, which we did for (I'm guessing) maybe another 25 miles, until we reached the Kelbaker Road, which would take us into the Preserve.
(An aside: I didn't want to take Route 66, but Rocket Boy shamed me into it. He said, "People in Germany would KILL to take Route 66." So we took Route 66. It was fine and we saw a lot of trains.)
The Mojave National Preserve is 1.6 million acres of land bounded by Interstate 15 to the north and Highway 40 to the south. It goes all the way to the Nevada border. This place is HUGE. Third largest National Park entity in the contiguous US (Death Valley is first). And it's so very dry and deserty, and not really a lot of manufactured "attractions" for visitors to look at (though of course there's lots we didn't see). I guess that's because it's a Preserve and not a Park?
All I could think, as we drove through it, was how many desert tortoises must live there. I could almost feel their little pulsing souls all around me.
The Preserve was not busy today -- probably because it's January, too early for flowers. We drove maybe 40 miles on the Kelbaker Road to Kelso and saw maybe 3 cars the whole time (I think most people enter from the I-15 side, though). As we drove through this utterly barren, bleak landscape, I started thinking what if there were a big earthquake in Ridgecrest today and when we got back, our house was flattened? I have a tendency to imagine disasters all the time anyway, but something about that desert...
When we reached Kelso we found a very attractive Visitor Center and coffee shop housed in the old Kelso depot.
We all got out and explored the place, I bought souvenirs at the gift shop, and the twins ran all over the exhibit rooms and up and down the stairs. I asked one of the rangers for a suggestion on a nice little hike we could take, but he didn't have any good ideas for the direction we were headed (northwest -- by then it was already 3pm and we really needed to be aiming ourselves back toward Ridgecrest). Clearly this is a place we need to come back to. You could spend your whole life exploring it.
But then Rocket Boy thought to ask about Zzyzx, and the ranger said that was a good idea -- on our way home and a nice little walk.
So we drove on across the Preserve on Kelbaker Road another 35 miles to the town of Baker, where we left the Preserve and got on I-15 headed west. About 6 miles down the road is an exit called "Zzyzx Road" and Rocket Boy, since he was a child, had always wanted to take that road. So we took it. It leads you back into the Preserve, because Zzyzx is now part of the Preserve.
Zzyzx has been various things over the centuries, but from 1944 to 1974 it was a spa, a "religious spa" according to one sign we read. Now it is a Desert Studies Center for various CSU campuses. But it's been extensively restored and it looks like a spa -- like you could just check in and start using the hot springs.
Well, almost.
We enjoyed Zzyzx very much, walked all around the pond and out to the dry lake. (When the boos saw the layer of white evaporite on the dry lake they said "Pfeffernusse!") But by then it was nearly 5pm and time to go.
From Zzyzx we drove 56 miles on I-15 back to Barstow, where we had dinner at an IHOP. Saturday night dinner at the Barstow IHOP. There's just something so desolate about how that sounds. Actually it was fine, and kids now eat free every night, so not too expensive either.
And then 35 miles on Highway 58 to Kramer Junction and 47 miles on Highway 395 back to Ridgecrest. When we got home we discovered that there had not been an earthquake that leveled our house, but we HAD left the coffeemaker on. No fire, though. Maybe next time.
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