Red Rock Canyon

On Thursday of last week Trish and I visited Red Rock Canyon, in the Cantil and Mojave area of California. It was a long drive, but well worth the welcome sparsity, isolation and beautiful sights seen. In a couple of hours you can escape the overwhelmingly, densely populated human hub of Los Angeles.

I do not mind the kind of driving the desert area offers--- long open horizon, vast blue sky, nothing but tumbleweeds and cacti and joshua trees on the side of the highway. It seems like driving in the desert should take hours, though I do occasionally have panicked visions of the car breaking down in the middle of no where, and lack of water.

We stopped in a visitor center in Mojave. The lovely lady there offered us tips and information. Trish got a few free posters, and I wandered around examining the book and map collection. We also ate lunch in a Subway in Mojave, which was surprisingly crowded, and visited a thrift store.

We walked around the desert, though not for very long. The heat was overbearing. The rock formations in Red Rock are extremely odd looking, in a spooky, other-worldly way. I put my hand on the 'rock' wall and discovered that it could be chipped away easily.

That's me up there yonder

Many little lizards ran around, but not much else. I did see plenty of tantalizing signs of life in the sand, though, mostly tracks of the nocturnal creatures. I stopped and looked at a rattlesnake warning poster. I kind of wanted to see a rattlesnake, but not really.