Desert Trip, Too

I went up to the desert to check out the place I'm buying today, hoping to get some sort of feel for what I'm getting myself in for as well as to take a sober assessment of the place. The first thing I noticed was encouraging: a "sold" sign advertising the seller's real estate agent. No mention of the woman I'm working with to buy the place, but I guess the convention is only the seller gets bragging rights.

What I just wrote isn't precisely true. Before noticing the "sold" sign I noticed that I'd missed the place and had driven a couple miles past it.

And that is a pretty good reflection on me and my whole way of dealing with this (and life in general, perhaps). To be honest, I don't have any idea what it will be like living there or much about it at all. Very few expectations. I'm basically buying this place because I think it's about as cheap a place to live as there is, I've kind of always had a fascination with the desert even though I loved living at the beach, and I've known a couple people who did or do live sorta out there.

It is a complete change from life in the city, at least the city of Los Angeles. Among other things, for the first and only time in my life I'll be thirty miles from the nearest freeway.

The land I'm getting is a 2.5 square, about a hundred paces on each side I think. Along one side is a dirt road, along another is a paved one and the adjacent lots (not the one across the paved road) all have much better looking (and larger) houses on them than mine. Mine will be on the corner of the paved and dirt road.

The ride up to my intended property still thrills me and is both rewarding and strange. Coming south down Interstate 10, a major highway, is pretty common, but it gets a little different as I near the Morongo Indian reservation, home of a casino I assume to be garish.

There were billboards advertising future (or perhaps even current or past) appearances by Alice Cooper and Lewis Black, but not at the same time I don't think. What struck me most about this part of the drive, though, is the surrounding mountains.

They're clear and visible, but they're not exactly adjacent. No one not from Los Angeles can possibly understand how unusual it is to see clearly things at a distance. Yes, it's the way the rest of the world is (and should be), but after years and years in LA, you get used to anything more than a couple miles away being out of focus, lacking definition.

No matter. I just find it a very good sign that I'm in a new place.

Just before the highway splits to take you to Palm Springs, there's a forest of wind turbines. I don't know (and don't care to look it up), but it's quite possibly the most wind turbines anywhere (except for all the places that have more). I did get a kick out of a highway sign in the middle of all this sporting the usual solar panel, and I may someday make a proposal that that particular sign should have a tiny windmill, instead, like one of those toy whirly gig things.

When you reach the middle of the wind turbine forest, you take a highway east, up into the mountains. This is a two lane road, but there's hardly any traffic lights on it and traffic still moves along it at 60-70 mph. It climbs, goes through some towns or cities that have a lot of bars, a few gas stations, and both familiar and local eating places. Also, more animal feed and horse tackle shops than I remember seeing in my old neighborhood, but, basically, all the things anyone probably needs to survive and get his or her car fixed.

Then, another left (Old Woman Springs Road), and further up the mountain, this time past some truly beautiful homes that are perched on the side of the mountain and are architecturally and aesthetically beautiful. I also suspect they're not inexpensive, like mine was. The road climbs, dips, and climbs some more, being a bit roller coastery there for a spell, before you reach the paved road off of which my future home is placed.

A couple miles down that road, past a school (Elementary? Middle? High?) but before the post office is the corner on which the place I'm buying sits. It;s not on a hill, but it is on top of a rise, I guess you'd call it, and if it wasn't for the damn neighbors' houses and trees, would have a commanding view of ... desert. And, in the distance, mountains and something I believe I was told is part of a Marine base.

Along the dirt road a grand total of one pick up truck traveled during the hour or so I was there, and it showed up soon after I did. The driver of the truck and I nodded briefly at each other in that non-committal way men do, and that was that. The paved road, however, stretched out straight to the horizon in both directions and I'd say a third or maybe half the time some car or truck was visible on it. I don't think they all passed me, but I wasn't paying close attention, not to the noon rush of traffic on a Saturday afternoon.

Good Lord it was quiet out there. I mean, quiet. Soundless. A person out there, situated as I was standing on the side of the road, could belch or fart and, unless he or she wrote it down or told you, no one would know.

This is  not like life in the city.