Sunday, March 25, 2018

Fun in the Desert


Before I go any further here, there is something I need to admit. I’m weird.  Yes, just like everyone else, I have a side of me that is what some people would call off the wall, strange, and abnormal.  But let’s face it, we all have our little quirks.  If we didn’t, no one would have any uniqueness to them and we would be like robots.  Being completely normal is…not normal at all.  So, now that I got that out of the way, here’s how I’m weird.  I like to explore places that most people probably couldn’t care less about.  Places no one has any reason to visit and therefore, largely go unnoticed.  When I was a kid, I discovered a city about thirty minutes away from my suburban Michigan hometown called Novi, Michigan.  I thought the name of the city sounded cool so I wanted to go there and check it out, just to see what was there.  When I brought up to my dad, he stopped what he was doing and gave me a puzzled look.  “Why would you want to go there?  There’s nothing there” he said.  Finally, I was able to convince my mom to take me out there for lunch on a random Saturday.  In college, I dated a girl from the town of Gobles, a small hamlet just outside of my college town.  Fascinated with this town, I was able to convince one of my roommates to drive out there with me to a bar to have some drinks and shoot pool.  I can’t think of any particular reason why I wanted to visit these places other than to explore and see what was there.  I have always liked to venture out to small, no-name, desolate places and see what kind of trouble I can get into, so to speak. 

It was a rainy Saturday morning in Los Angeles, and I was, again, feeling adventurous.  It was time for another field trip.  I wouldn’t be driving to the local trails or the beach to go running this morning.  Instead, I was going to drive out to the California high desert and set off on a run to another town that I was intrigued by; Landers, California.  A tiny desert town with a population of around 3,000, Landers is located in San Bernardino county, just north of Joshua Tree National Park.  I stumbled upon this place a couple of years earlier while reading online about the Giant Rock, supposedly the largest freestanding boulder in the world.  The town is in the middle of the Mojave Desert and is composed of dirt roads, mobile homes, modest sized houses, a few restaurants and gas stations, a couple of stores, and large desert fields chock full of Joshua trees, desert plants, and random junk.  However, due to it’s remote desert location, the town is known for having spectacular sunsets, dazzling star filled night skies, and world class sunrises.  Still, unless you’re an astronomy enthusiast, or just a curious individual who likes to explore, there probably isn’t much of a reason to visit Landers.  There may not much happening there, but today I was going to see for myself.
The rain fell on my windshield as I drove along the 10 freeway eastbound through the cities of Upland and Fontana.  Rain was forecasted in and around Los Angeles, but the high desert area was forecasted to remain sunny and dry.  By the time I reached Mount San Jacinto, the rain had stopped and some of the clouds had dissipated.  The sun was now making its way into the sky with rays of orange light breaking through the clouds in front of me.  The 10 freeway is a major gateway that passes through the Coachella Valley into the cities of Palm Springs, Palm Desert, and Indio, followed by miles of open desert to the Arizona border, to Phoenix, and beyond.  I had never been further east in Southern California than the Indio area and I thought about how fun it would be to travel this road and see all the places it passed through.  I would have to save that for another day though.  To get to my destination, I would need to exit the 10 and make my way north up highway 62. 

As I arrived in the town of Yucca Valley, I pulled into a gas station near the road on which I was going to be running.  When I opened my car door, a rush of cold morning air blew inside.  It made me shiver, but it was refreshing as I stood outside my car and took a deep inhale of the clean, crisp desert air.   I walked inside, used the rest room, and made my way to the checkout counter with a big bottle of water.  The clerk and I were chatting as she rang up my purchase.  “It’s raining all over LA, so I came out here to unwind and go for a nice long run” I told her.  “Where are you running to?” “I’m going to start here and go to Landers and back” I explained.  “Wow, good for you!” She said, smiling.  “Thanks!  We’ll see how it goes”.  I exited the gas station and drove to a small residential street off the 247 highway to park my car.  My plan was to run along the side of the road in the bike lane, head north from Yucca Valley, and turn around once I got to Landers.  I made my preparations and headed out on foot towards the 247.  The road in front of me climbed a few hundred feet, curving off to the left in the distance.  On both sides of the road were large rock formations, resembling giant light brown marbles and stones in a heaping pile.  As I made way around the bend, the piles of rocks formed walls on either side of the road.  It was early in the morning and the road was still relatively quiet, but every few minutes, a car would pass by.  I was running with the traffic, so people on my side passed cautiously, while on coming drivers gave me looks as if to say ‘whoa, you’re running out here? Okay, that’s cool, I guess!’  Just then, a pickup truck passed by and gave a couple of quick taps of the car horn as they drove up behind me.  Initially, I was annoyed, but as they passed, the passenger leaned out the window and flashed me the peace sign.  Those feelings of annoyance were promptly reverted, and I smiled, returning the favor.  Shortly after reaching the bottom of the hill, I came upon an intersection with a dirt road.  As I approached the intersection, a jeep came barreling down the dirt road and fish tailed to a stop, kicking up a cloud of dust.  I cruised by and waved to the occupants.  They were two teenage guys who were off-roading on the desert trails.  They looked surprised to see me but smiled and gave me a thumbs up.  As time passed, the road gradually got busier.  I was nearing the crest of another hill when an old SUV came down the road towards me in the oncoming lane.  I didn’t take much notice until I heard a loud bang as it passed by.  The startling noise shook me from my focus and my head spun to the left.  ‘What the hell was that?’ I said out loud.  Seeing the smoke from the exhaust pipe, I realized the SUV had backfired as it passed me, due to the restrain that the driver was putting on the engine to get over the steep hill.  However, the desolation of the desert environment was making my imagination run wild, and my mind pondered the idea of some strung out meth head driving down the road early in the morning and thinking it would be pretty hilarious to fire his gun in the air as he drove by, just to scare the living hell out of me.  Running down the hill was steep, and I had to slow myself.  By the time I reached the bottom, I saw a sign indicating that Landers was just another five miles up the road.  I continued along with nothing in sight except for the open road, the blue ski, and the mountains in the distance.  Several Joshua trees crowded the sandy, rocky desert landscape on either side of the road and I reveled in the morning calmness of the desert.  Only when I paused my ipod did I realize how peaceful it was.  There was not a sound to be heard except the pattering of my feet.  It was so soothing that I decided to keep my ipod paused for a few minutes and just enjoy it.  A few more miles were covered, and eventually the town of Landers came into view.  I had found a trail that ran parallel to the road that wove through the Joshua trees, which had just dumped me back on the roadside as I entered the outskirts of town.  Once I reached eight and a half miles, I crossed the road, and began heading back to Yucca Valley.  About a half a mile later, I came upon an establishment that consisted of a Valero gas station and a small building that acted as the local diner, liquor store, convenience store, deli, etc.  When I entered the building, I made a left towards the dining area and walked past some tables towards the restroom to relieve myself.  As I walked out, I saw in front of me a middle-aged lady sitting at a table by herself sipping some coffee.  We made eye contact and I nodded at her as I was walking by.  “How far are you running?” “Hmm, let’s see” I answered.  I pulled out my cell phone to check how many miles I had covered on my Strava app.  I’ve gone about nine miles and I’ll be doing seventeen all together”.  “That’s great!” she proclaimed with a big smile.  “I love it.  We’ve been watching you out on the road.”  I didn’t sense that she was a runner or that she would be taking up the sport any time soon, but I was flattered that she was intrigued and excited about my little desert running escapade.  “Thank you!” I said, smiling back. “Thanks for the support!”  “Alright!” she proclaimed again, throwing her arms in the air.  Just then her family came and sat down. I bade them farewell and headed back out the door.  As I ran down the road and headed back towards Yucca Valley, I got a nice cadence going, thanks to the new burst of energy I got from my encounter in the diner.  It was moving to me, knowing that some of these people driving along this desolate road were supportive of my adventure and yet they had no clue who I was, where I was from, or why I was doing this.  But they saw some nut case out here running along the side of the road and they thought that was pretty freaking cool.  I continued to get occasional waves and nods from passing vehicles, and eventually I came over the top of the final hill.  I was treated to a spectacular view of Yucca Valley with the town center directly in front of me, the mountains and the desert resting on the horizon.  I made it back to my car, jumped in and started heading back home.  During the drive I laughed to myself about the morning’s events and thought about how unique this run was.  I felt like I had gotten a small taste of what it was like running Badwater, only it was much cooler outside.  The last thought I had before drifting on to other thoughts was “wow, running sure has taken me places!”