The Drive into the Desert

After visiting friends in San Diego, and visiting four breweries out of their 140-plus establishments, it was time for me to get on the road to my next stop, Palm Desert, which I’d planned to use as a base for a day-trip into Joshua Tree National Park.  As a bucket list item, I decided to drive along the eastern edge of the Salton Sea – I was rewarded with being able to check that one off my list, but I couldn’t call it a major highlight of the vacation.

The Taco Shop stop.

When I looked at my route, I discovered I’d be driving through Alpine, California, the location of that little brewery that Green Flash had bought.  I decided I might stop there for lunch and see if I could get a flight, but it was Monday and they weren’t open.  There was a little taco stand that reminded me of one I’d visited in Fresno, so I stopped there instead. 

I asked the lady behind the counter which she preferred – chicken or beef – the answer was beef.  Truth be told, I was a little afraid of potential digestive turmoil from the meal, but happily, there is nothing to report from this stage of the visit.

As it turns out, Monday was the day one of our brewery reports was due to the state, and I’d had some technical problems filing via their on-line system.  The representative called me while I was on the drive, just as I was getting out into the eastern part of San Diego County – the desert.  Signal was sparse, and I wasn’t able to reconnect for an hour or so; eventually we took care of this business and I was free to enjoy the rest of the drive.

The Salton Sea is a legend that is worth checking out – here is a Wikipedia link – I read about the boom and bust story in a National Geographic, so that’s how it got on my bucket list (which also included walking across the Golden Gate Bridge, and hiking to the summit of the Half Dome, both complete). 

The Roadrunner.

If you decide to make a trip like this, be advised that “visitor center” is something of a term of art in these public lands.  I'd planned to make a stop at the Sonny Bono visitor center, but it wasn't worth the stop the day I drove through.  In any case, the view from the highway was quite nice.  There are a few lingering campsites and state parks that provide plenty of better opportunities to check out the lake.

One incident that struck me as worthwhile to post – out there in the desert, there was a place where ICE had set up a detour requiring all vehicles to pull through for an agent inspection.  It’s isolated so there weren’t many cars on the road during my drive and I was the only one in the station when I arrived there.  The agent verbally challenged me, some mix of a greeting and an attempt to find out if I was illegal, but the old, six-five white guy who said he was on the way to Joshua Tree didn’t raise suspicions, and I drove on, through the date palm groves and other typical farms, eventually making it to the Palm Desert Hampton Inn.

Sometime during my Hampton stay, I encountered this road runner bird hanging around the pool – actually there were two of them.  Nature is everywhere.