Oh The Places I've Never Been To: Volume 1

One of my adventure-fantatasies that I've been holding on to for a long time is going on a desert road trip.

And I don't just mean a trip to Las Vegas, I mean all those little signs you see along the freeway between Victorville and Las Vegas along the 5 fwy, or along that other  one (the 40??) that goes out to Arizona. The Colorado River is out there, London Bridge is out there, there's even a stupid swimming pool that people are supposed to go on a scavenger hunt for.

(There's so much cool stuff in the mojave desert that I haven't seen just cuz its hot out there, if the car breaks down I will surely die...and I'm terrified to drive on the freeway.)

Some years ago I discovered that there's a beautiful rock/dune formation that's like, maybe ten miles from where I live (if that). People go there from all over the continent to ATV and camp. I've even met people at hospital clinical sites in the inland empire who're all like, "Wow, you're from lucerne valley!" (You don't get that enthusiasm from the residents of other high desert communities as much).

I want to be like those people. I want to see the beauty in the desert and not just look with distain at that empty nothingness between where-I-live and where-I-want-to go.

Today I was shopping the market, and I found this set of books by an indie explorer-author, Bill "Shortfuse" Mann (which totally sounds like a gnome W.o.W name). I talks about places to go in the desert and it has a lot of pictures, which is awesome).

I found out the spring that I drive by on my way to work;  indians used to live there and a justice of the peace guy. And the tree that grows right next to it is called "the hangmans tree".  There's also a ton of places that I've not been to. 

When I checked out through the express lane and the clerk and I got into a conversation about the book and he says something like, "did you hear the dinosaur house got trashed...again?"

I was taken off guard and almost said, "Eeyye did not know that there was such a place as the dinosaur house."

But irl I just said, "No!! Really?"

And he said, "Yeah, the boy scouts renovated it the first time, but its a mess."
Then he showed me page 53, one of the homestead houses his grandpa used to make for people. 

Pretty darn cool!

I wanna go to all of these places, and greatfully this is something I can do. And when I'm done, there are five other volumes of Mr Mann's desert adventures to go through.

Hello,  world here I come ;)

I think a full on desert road trip is still beyond me, but that doesn't mean I can't explore these places.

I basically live in operations central. If I get stuck, I can probably walk home.