Apr. 8
Lorraine and I were both quite taken with the little town of Joshua Tree, which is right outside the national park of the same name. As is our wont, we picked up some of the local real estate brochures, and were so intrigued with one particular listing that we had to go see it while we were there. It bordered on the BLM land that we camped on last night. After a somewhat harrowing (to me) bumpy ride over dirt roads, we came to this oasis on 2 and a half acres. It had some pretty fair-size trees for the desert providing nice shade, and there were 3 buildings on the fenced-in property. It was up on a bit of an elevation, and the main house had a great view of the valley below, as well as being surrounded by mountains on all sides. A guest house and a little artist’s studio were part of the property too. The views were spectacular, and the privacy just right. (There were neighbors within eyesight, but not so close that you felt they were on top of you.) It seemed like just the kind of thing we imagine when we think about a home in the west. The price was $199K. Lorraine looked on her Android and found that the current owners had bought it about 4 years ago for $300K. We’re not ready to make a move right now, but we were both really taken with it, and would have done more investigation if the timing had been right for us.

Apr. 9
Our next destination is a journey home of sorts. About 40 years ago, long before I knew her, Lorraine lived for 2 years on sort of a commune in northern California. It was there (actually in the hospital in the nearest town) that her daughter Sheva was born. Many times over the years she has told me that she would love to go back there and show me the place. Of course, she has no idea if any of the people from back then are still there; or even if the land is still the rural area it once was. For all she knows, it could be a shopping mall by now. But “Google Earth” seems to show it still as open country, as near as she can pinpoint it. Anyway, we have decided that we may never be closer than we now are, and so we are going to attempt to find it. The closest town is Garberville, and it is about 800 miles north of Joshua Tree. So “close’ is a relative term (especially at $4.20 or so per gallon.) But we are determined to see what there is to see. It is north of San Francisco, and near the coast.
We stopped overnight last night in Bakersfield, which is known as “Nashville West”. An alternative country music scene developed there in the 1960’s (epitomized by Buck Owens) featuring a leaner, harder-edged sound with less orchestration. This is before country more or less merged with rock+roll, and is actually the beginning of that trend. Bakersfield musicians certainly influenced the whole country-rock sound of the Eagles,
Buffalo Spingfield, Poco, etc. in the 70’s. We had a steak dinner in “The Original Roadhouse” (which would be a tough claim to validate, since it was a chain) and the music playing was a lot of Merle Haggard and such, so I think they are still proud of that heritage. The muzak playing in the Wal-Mart however had no less orchestration than in any other Wal-Mart, so I don’t think they got the memo.