Leaving Amboy on Route 66 you travel only a mile or two before
turning right, going under the freeway and entering the Mojave National
Preserve. A quick left can take you too
Mitchell Caverns – but by this time you’ve had enough and are ready to get to
Vegas.
.
And so you fly along the road to Vegas, but an odd thing
happens to you. The beauty of the Mojave
starts to infect you here. There are
occasional Joshua Trees (later a forest of them, but they start slow – building
excitement). And the rocks take on
exotic wild configurations. Your mind
cannot help but feast on the sensory perceptions. After so much plainness, the land and the
cactus and the road take on a quality that puts you into the mind of a
movie. Even with full air-conditioning –
at some point you go 90 mph and roll down the window. The speed is ferocious, the land empty and
the smell is dry. There is no other way
to describe it.
.
Suddenly you see what appears to be a Mission on the
Horizon. Since you’re in the desert, you
see it from miles away and it burns into you mind. You have to stop. You have imagined so much that you have to
see what it is.
.
I have been in years, and apparently they have changed it.
It used to be an old train depot (Kelso). Well
preserved on the outside and closed.
Rumor has it they added a restaurant and information center and I hope
so. In any case, it is a stop everyone
makes. It is as close to a stagecoach
stop as you will find in the country anymore.
Not a film set, but a piece of history preserved in the Sahara like
desert air.
.
 |
| The Keslo-Cima Road (note the one train that stretches to forever) |
The signs will tell you to take the road to Baker (the
KelBaker Raod) to get to Vegas. But you
are long past signs. And that one is a
ruse. You would end up doubling back. No, head straight away down the Kelso-Cima
road, then to the Ivanpah Road this takes you the quickest way to Vegas. And, along the way, you will pass the densest
Joshua Tree forest I have ever seen.
.
Now, to call it a forest might be to give you the wrong
impression. It is a “forest” made up of
Joshua “Trees”, which are really just tall yuccas. So it’s not like a shady leafy forest. But it is unlike almost anything else you
will ever seen. And, at the end, you are
on the California / Nevada state line.
.
You gps won’t get you there easily, but that is what an Epic
road Trip is all about.