Joshua Tree & Palm Springs
29 March 2024
For the first time in a month, I’m in a National Park that does not overraw. It’s Joshua Tree, about 60 miles eastish of Palm Springs and 150 miles across endless, straight, desert roads from Havasu.
Like the U2 album that took its name, it’s excellent in places but overrated, overall. A nice ride on a gently winding road that neither gains nor loses much altitude over thirty-miles. However, it’s slow-going being so gentle, so attracts the sort of elderly, dithering drivers I thought the UK (along with Holland & Belgium with their motorhome pilots) had a monopoly on.
As 90% of the road has two bright yellow lines running up the middle, overtaking is pretty much impossible. Other than that, it has a lot of the famous, very strange-looking (and let’s be honest, plug-ugly) trees, a splattering of faecal-looking rock formations. And that’s about it.
As I have my $79, ‘America the Beautiful’ card, I was spared the $30 admission fee. These cards are a must as I would have racked up over $200 so far. There are 63 parks in total and I’m due to go through fifteen.
Net-net is I’m pleased to have seen the Joshua Tree National Park but underwhelmed by it. Or maybe it’s just in comparison to what’s gone previously but either way, I didn’t find what I was looking for. Sorry, that one was hard to resist.
Exiting the park in the drab town of the same name, there’s a thrilling charge downhill through the Yukka and Morongo Valleys with two Harleys. The three of us in formation to make our presence felt, barging other traffic out of the way. It culminates in a series of soaring, downhill bends to the desert floor and Palm Springs.
Like Naples and Telluride, this is a hyper-exclusive enclave for the filthy-rich with this one catering to the whims of the entertainment industry. It’s only two hours from Los Angeles by car and probably a lot less than that by private jet.
Low-rise and spacious with clean, restrained architecture, it also has the air of God’s Waiting Room. Buildings on South Palm Canyon Drive that would be lawyers’ offices or banks in other cities are swank private hospitals and care facilities. Even if you don’t achieve immortality by having your name on one of the hundreds of commemorative paving stones, your last few days will be lived out in supreme comfort.
That said, immortality does appear to be on offer for the right price. How else could it be that ‘Borko B Dvjordjevic - Plastic Surgeon & Humanitarian’ could end up inserted between Rock Hudson and Lew Grade?
I’m assuming Borko paid handsomely for this privilege. But perhaps it’s retribution by a city official for a penile enhancement procedure that went horribly wrong, who subsequently made him the meat-in-the-sandwich between Rock and Lew for eternity. My apologies as you can’t unimagine that one.
According to the song, ‘It never rains in Southern California’ but Albert Hammond cleverly added a coda that no-one remembers over the jingly-jangly tune:
‘But, don't they warn ya?; It pours, man, it pours’ and he’s not wrong…
I’d planned to take some photographs before leaving this morning, hopeful that the bright morning light would set off Palm Spring’s most distinguishing feature - the soaring palms - with the cool but glamorous, 1950s framework of the city.
But freak Easter weather conditions have put paid to that as the whole of Southern California is suffering a deluge. My planned journey through the San Gabriel Mountains on a temptingly squiggly route is looking increasingly in doubt. When I read that the National Weather Service are mandating snow chains, I accept defeat and set a direct course to Pasadena