“It tastes like blood back there.” And with those words, as Derek fiddled with his tooth’s new crown, we started our trip.

We made a pact to be healthy. So of course the first place we stopped to eat was In-n-Out. The place where everything tastes oh-so-good going down, and three minutes later causes you to feel like a bloated lard ball bemoaning lifes stupid choices. It was a good way to say goodbye to our old way of life. Or so we told ourselves. We’ve also shook hands on going to Pilates together when we’re back in London. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told myself I would start, but this time we shook hands, so that really means something. And I’m tired of being Popeye without the spinach weak, where I am always pulling muscles (like my infamous left chest and shoulder muscle) every time I yank a recalcitrant suitcase too hard.

It was stop and go for a bit. We stopped to pick up a few last minute things (because the car wasn’t full enough) including a pair of shorts for me. I didn’t bring any, because I hate wearing shorts, and I’m generally good at pretending to myself that everything is fine until someone points out the truth of the situation. Ie. Derek saying flatly “Leah, it’s going to be 90 degrees in Death Valley. You need shorts.” Oh, ok.

But then, for real, we were on the road, flying through the car pool lane with our two people occupied car. It was a beautiful day to begin, the sun was shining, the breeze was breezing, and the sky was fluffy with clouds. We couldn’t wait to get out of LA and away from all of the traffic. Maybe that’s not fair, considering we were in a car and part of the problem, but rarely do wishes cede to logic.

It was very deserty on the drive to Death Valley, and we stopped in California City for the purposes of research. Some of you may or may not know that part of this trip is a research project for a book I want to write, and I think CA City is going to feature in it. So I took some flip video, notes and pictures in this little town, and then we were on the road again, driving, driving.

Leaving CA City, we took what we thought was the correct road. The maintained part of the road soon ended, and Derek navigated our laden car around the pot holes (or parts of the road that were simply eaten away) as best he could. The road (or lack of) worsened, and I found many invectives escaping my mouth unconsciously. As our car dipped and bottomed out, I found myself breathing ‘oh shit oh shit oh shit’, and once in awhile a croaky ‘oh my (octave higher) god’ as our tires launched and slammed into the gravel, trailing a dust cloud behind us. I imagined being stranded on this 22 mile stretch of road with shredded tires and nowhere to go but into the horizon of the hot sun. Derek gripped the steering wheel tightly, but was grinning like a banshee. I asked him if maybe we should stop for a moment to take stock, but he said we couldn’t because of the ‘crazy people.’ He did a good job of finding a path for the car, considering most of the potholes were invisible until you were in them. The lines of my neck were involuntarily taunt, which wasn’t helping my shoulder or chest any. I wanted to fish out some aleve from my suitcase, but it was hopelessly buried in the pile, and besides, stopping meant risking those crazy desert people (even though we know a few desert people who are decidedly sane). There were no road signs, (or other roads for that matter), Derek’s blackberry gave us the wrong GPS location so we new that was useless, so we just kept moving along, praying to find the main road. Which we did, of course, or I wouldn’t be posting this, instead we would be stranded in the desert conserving our water. Landing on paved asphalt once again, Derek gave a “whoo hoo!” and a “yee haa,” where all I could manage was a “ffffaaaa,” too clenched from top to bottom to utter anything else.

On the main road again, we passed through Trona, or the town that the world has chosen to forget. If, by some miracle, you have heard of Trona, it may be because part of Tim’s Planet of the Apes was filmed at the Trona Pinnacles, a series of rock formations outside of the town that harkens back to primordial times.

The town is populated by factory workers and their families, as the main income is from the factories that spew their gases into the atmosphere. Their main company mines the mineral Trona, which is an important part of Sodium carbonate. Whatever the biproduct is (or perhaps the mineral itself) the entire stretch of town for miles stinks like low grade sulpher, a noxious odor that clogs your nose and coats your throat as you drive through. I wonder how people can live with that constant, toxic smell. There is no grass and little vegetation. The bleak landscape is ashen with white mineral deposits. I saw two people flirting in the town’s park – rocks surrounded by rusted fences. There are as many abandoned, decrepit buildings as there are houses lived in. It is an ugly town, and yet it has a pirate man selling flowers, cafes that advertise WiFI in hand painted signs, and a high school whose mascot is the Tornado. Leaving the town we saw an old, stick-thin man in a wheelchair on his porch, with a wispy beard and hair. The American flag fluttered behind him in the wind, and he gave us a wave as we passed. I felt sad and depressed, and wanted to make fun of the American dream after seeing and smelling this town, but something in the stature of that man, his proud stance, the kind wave, makes pity seem wrong. Perhaps they stay there not out of need but out of choice.

And then the air was clear again, and I breathed deeply, and studied the landscape and began to appreciate the desert’s subtle forms of life. The desert is such a desolate beauty, but there is hardiness in its lifeforms, that survive despite burning sun, dehydration and its unstable, loose soil, especially on the mountainsides. Life springs determinedly from each crack and crevice, and though it may not be as abundant as life elsewhere, each plant or lizard or bug or bat seems more precious for the absence of others around it. Each lifeform is highlighted in its space, so that I’m more careful where I step, for I don’t want to crush that single stem with its cluster of purple flowers, since I see no others like it nearby. It’s life is hard won, and to be respected.

I also appreciate the rich variation of the color palette here. It doesn’t scream with vibrancy, but it’s muted greens, and infinite shades of tan and brown lend itself to a subtlety best appreciated with time. I notice the tiny yellow flowers that tint some surfaces a mustard color, the reddish hue to the mountain soil, those poofy plants whose innards are green and it’s outsides sprout in thick sprigs of tan like an albino porcupine. The desert’s beauty is also in its contrast of flat scrubby shrubby sand against mammoth mountains that look like crinkled elephants feet from a distance. The mountains and sun create shadowy landscapes where brighter swatches streak against dark patches, and the highest tips of the hills and mountains peek through the shadows. And as the sun finally sinks behind the mountains on our left, leaving behind a silvered sky , we watch as the larger shadow crawls up the mountains on our, right swallowing the smaller shadows as it moves upward. Its fascinating how much the light changes our surroundings from moment to moment. And into this sunset, which began to show the slightest bits of pink and purple in the clouds, we drove into Death Valley.

Where, with all of this beauty stuffed into my head, I suddenly realize we are driving some crazy swirly roads with no guard rails. Derek makes the mistake of looking over and is visibly shaken, and I issue my most vile involuntary curse of the day as we hug the side of the mountain with nothing to stop us from flying into far down ditches of rocks: “Oh F*ckity f*ck!” But then we are free and clear of the scary parts, and we are driving in Death Valley to a gorgeous, full moon.

As it’s already dark, we decide to get a room at a little motel in the park, instead of camping (we also forgot to pick up food, so the idea of spooning peanut butter into our mouths as dinner wasn’t exactly appealing at the moment). Come to find out, there are no motel rooms available in Death Valley or any nearby town. I’m feeling a little guilty at this point, what with insisting we didn’t make reservations that morning. I try to convince a road weary, jetlagged Derek how much fun camping will be, even picking up saltines so that we can have peanut butter and jelly saltine sandwiches for dinner (MUCH better than just spooning the stuff into your mouth) until we realize there are no camping spots open either (though these, at least, you can’t make reservations for). So we make the spur of the moment decision to drive through the park in the moonlight and head straight to Vegas and get a jumpstart on the trip. But before we do that, we stop for almost an hour to take timed exposures of the moonlit landscape. We pass the salt flats, and illuminated by the moon, it has a fairy tale quality, looking like white mist rising against the mountain. As we drive by one of the other inns in the park, around 10:30pm, I say, “just in case, lets stop and ask if they have a cancellation.” So I do, and they tell us they don’t have a spot, but the Furnace Creek Inn (the one Derek originally wanted to make the reservation at in the first place) just happens to have a cancellation. So we race down there in fear someone will arrive before us, and not only do they have the room, but they give us a huge discount since we’re filling a cancelled spot. And because I can’t resist, I ask if we had called in the morning, would there have been any reservations available. The guy at the desk tells us that it would have been highly unlikely. Derek and I were giddy with our whim at that point. For if we had tried to make the reservation, and failed, we may never have journeyed into Death Valley that night, and never would have seen its beauty by moonlight.

That being said, we knew it would be slow going today, so we made a reservation at the Palms. Which means our first day of camping will be Wednesday, in the Valley of Fire outside of Las Vegas.

Captions:

1. Railroad crossings in the desert.

2.. Driving to Death Valley.

3. Stopping to take photos in the moonlight.

4. Timed 30 second exposure with cars passing on the road.

5. The tunnel to the Furnace Creek Inn elevator.

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