Back to the Desert.

We were so near Los Angeles, yet it was not time for us to visit. Our nephew has an apartment in town and we were due to visit but not for another few weeks. With this in mind, we headed North East and back into the desert with Barstow as our destination. We had a fantastic ride up and through the San Bernadino Pass by Onyx Peak, pulling over a few times to allow the faster cars to continue their upward ascent without us getting in their way. Being one of the highest roads in Southern California, it took us from near sea-level to nearly 8,000ft (2,500m), feeling the cold and the wet as we passed through cloud into the cold sun above. Temperatures dropped to near freezing before I stopped to change gloves as my summer vented fingers and heated grips could do nothing to fend off the biting windchill on my fingers.

As we dropped back down to the Mojave desert, the temperature changed as dramatically as the landscape, going from pine forests and mountain streams, to parched desert scrublands and straight roads.

Before the Interstate and modern vehicles, Barstow became a mid-point place between Los Angeles and Las Vegas for people to break their journey. With the flat expanse of desert surrounding the slight hill that Barstow is built upon, it also became a huge rail-yard; complete with sheds for numerous steam engines and a turntable to rotate engines and other rolling stock that could only operate in one direction. Barstow was also a major town on the Route 66 and it is probably this latter relationship that now provides the most tourism. It is fair to say, the town has seen better and more prosperous days, as the main Interstate now by-passes the town making Los Angeles to Las Vegas a days drive for most people.

Our hotel was a little tired but more than adequate for our needs. We had patio doors that led straight out to the where the bikes were parked, making it very easy for all the luggage we carry. Parked next to us was a very clean and well maintained Cadillac, owned by a man who was making his annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas, to spend 2 weeks in the gambling halls, hoping not to lose all the gambling funds he had accumulated for just this annual occasion. Not a holiday we would consider but it was the highlight of his year. Just as some of our friends always return to the same foreign town and restaurant, so this man returns to the same hotel and (probably) the same slot-machines.

There were many murals and other artworks on the walls, providing the historic relevance of Barstow from the Indigenous tribes living with the land, to the gold-rush days, through to Route 66 fame, all in an attempt to hold on to the past. The 60’s shop-fronts and even the empty plots remained the main tourist attractions, with their decaying signs and broken neon strips. They also housed many homeless people either drunk or mentally ill, who would chase across the street in an attempt to engage and plead for money. It was rather intimidating and our first time for seeing someone make a home beside a main road, within a hedge, butted up against a wall - as homes go, he had made it pretty comfortable.

The main attraction, for us, was the rail-yard, or what was left of it. The walk from the hotel took us down a small road on the edge of town, past a junkyard and over a small hill. It was on top of this hill and overlooking the rail-yard, that we saw our first tarantula spider, sitting in a hole, basking in the sun and awaiting unsuspecting prey. Being so still and having taken a few pictures, I decided to see if it was still alive by gently prodding it with a stick. With one movement of a hairy leg, I decided the stick was not long enough and she was best left alone to enjoy her day and not spoil mine.

Whilst most of the rails have long since gone, there are some lines that remain and clear evidence of where the old lines used to be. The area is open, hot and dusty, with the occasional very long wagon train passing through. The main remaining building was the Barstow Harvey House. Fred Harvey was a London born freight agent who started restaurants and hotels alongside railways as a means to feed and entertain the tourists and other visitors that travelled the rail network. The Barstow Harvey House is one of the finest remaining “Harvey House” as the Barstow town bought the site and spent $8million on its restoration. It is now used for civic events and has a display of space exploration, with some tenuous (to me) link to a US military base nearby.

In the day, the waitresses were known as ‘Harveys Girls’ and lived and worked on the premises. This was a respectable venue. Harvey Girls were not permitted to liaise with any of the guests and any flirtation would result in the end of their employment - a job that was hard to obtain and held in high regard. A Harvey Girl who chose to leave, would have no problem in finding other suitable employment.

The site is also home to the Western America Railroad Museum, with some impressive engines displayed outside. Inside, the information and displays are very much worth a visit, with numerous old photographs, maps and engineers drawings, enabling you to envisage what the area looked like and how people worked and lived. My favourite display was the “Date Nails”. These are nails with a year date stamped into the head, allowing engineers to see when the sleepers were laid. Originally, sleepers were untreated and would only last 5 years before being replaced. As sleeper preservation techniques were introduced and improved, the date nails allowed engineers to see just how long the sleeper had been in place and to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment and the eventual replacement. This display of nails took up a whole room with many, many glass cases. Something as dull as a nail was brought to life in a fascinating way that appealed to me.

The railway museum had that ‘feel’ of a family run show. It doesn’t have the huge financial support that other museums have and the staff running the place were very, very friendly, chatty and welcoming. Nancy is one such volunteer, who grew up overlooking the turntable and has remained in the town ever since. Nancy was enthralled with our story and has become a firm supporter of our YouTube channel - thank you Nancy. xx

The engines from my childhood when Dad would create similar scenes.

In another part of the Harvey House is a Route 66 museum, where we spent a further hour enjoying the sights and sounds of the heyday and plotting where our journey had run along or crossed the Route 66.

For my birthday, Isi was to take me to the Calico mines - a gold mine about 20 minutes ride North of Barstow and, supposedly, one of the best maintained gold mining towns from the days of the gold rush. I say ‘supposedly’ as everything was covered in non-traditional Christmas tinsel, flags, inflatable ‘things’ and other such plastic ‘tat’, with the sounds of Christmas Carols and other such festive songs, just in case you were blind… Being as Christmas has always been close to my birthday, I have had to grow up and live a life of plastic covered stuff to celebrate my birthday. The Americans take this to a whole new level and it was hard work to take photos without said ‘tat’ in the shots. I mean, how can you document a historic event with Frosty the snowman spraying his wares all over the place.

(a lot of time has been spent erasing Santa from the following images)

Who knows how authentic, but if the ceiling could tell stories.

All that aside, the mine and the town are very much worthy of a visit, just don’t go at anytime near a festival or holiday as, I’m sure, the owners have a way to dress the town for all occasions.

That evening, we went in search of food and found a themed American restaurant full of memorabilia from the Fire Department. The building had nothing to do with the Fire Department, but the owner loves all things Fire and it was great to eat my birthday dinner amongst all these American memories.

On the morning we were leaving, Isi noticed a photo of Scott in Los Angeles on Instagram. Scott is the Canadian who reached out and helped with communications when I was suffering with a bad back in Whitehorse and we previously met him briefly at Watson Lake in the Yukon. Isi replied asking if this was a current shot or one from the archives. Between them, we established Scott was in the area and once we told him our plans to get back over the San Bernardino pass and take another route further North, Scott said “don’t change your plans, I’ll find you”.

Travelling from the desert and back in to the mountains was a relief to enjoy the cooler temperatures and at one point, we stopped to enjoy people using the ski-slopes around the towns catering for those that choose to strap planks to their feet and allow gravity to drag them down a slippery slope of cold, wet stuff…

Soon after, Scott and his BMW passed us in the other direction. We pulled over in a large lay-by and didn’t need to wait long for Scott to arrive. Like long lost family, we hugged and bade each other well and generally chatted. It was about the time of day when Isi gets hangry, so we decided to descend to San Bernardino and find a fast food place for some relief. Whilst tucking in to our burger and chips, Scott commented how well Isi and me ride together, a formation that changes as the road demands. I was stoked to hear this and grateful for his comments as I find it hard to accept other people’s praise. The conversation carried on and Scott asked where we were headed and we said we had a fantastic deal at the Miracle Springs Resort in Desert Hot Springs. “Where are you headed?”, Isi said to Scott with his nose in his phone, and his reply was “just booked a room at the same place, so let’s go”.

So, with Scott as tail-end-Charlie, we headed to the hot pools of the Miracle Springs resort, spending the whole afternoon and evening just chatting about anything and everything. The following morning we met up for breakfast and the conversation continued until Scott asked what the time was. 10.45, I said, realising Scott had 15 minutes to pack and get out of his room. As he rushed off, I said to Isi that he will book another night and, guess what, I was right! Another day spent in and out of the various pools, chatting and chilling. It was sad to see Scott finally leave the next morning, though we fully expect to meet again.

One of the main reasons for staying in Desert Hot Springs, was its proximity to Palm Springs. We had arranged to meet for lunch with Sheri at her house in Palm Springs. The ride down took us across windswept, sandy desert and past wind turbines placed to capitalise on the winds coming off the mountains and to provide power for all the electric cars that surrounded us. Bearing in mind we were in the desert, the amount of green grass and other water hungry plants was astonishing and, as we saw from Sheri’s patio beside the pool and flowing water feature, we could see the golf course did not reserve the water for just the greens. The golf course could have been transplanted from the UK, with the trees replaced with palm trees and skies that could only happen a few days of the year.

It was a great afternoon spent chatting with Sheri and her daughter, Tamara, who had popped over to see what strangers her Mum had invited in today. Many names such as Whoopi Goldberg, Neil Diamond and others, were dropped in to the conversation as people who lived down the street etc., One interesting conversation was about the ground fees paid to the local Indigenous tribes who owned the land the estate was built on. It seems different tribes have had land returned to them, even after being developed, so the tribes benefit from ground fees and can impose conditions and restrictions on land use. On the face of it, it seemed a good thing to me.

We obviously made a good impression on Tamara and Sheri as, when we returned to our hotel, we found an email inviting us to Tamara's for their Annual Christmas boat parade in a few days time. We quickly extended our stay at the hotel to marry up with the invitation.

On arrival at the private estate that Tamara lived in, we struggled to get in to the gated compound. We couldn’t find anyway to access the gate or let anyone know we were there. It wasn’t until a Porsche pulled up at the keypad on the other side of the way in, we realised we were behaving as if we were in a right-hand drive car and on the wrong side of the lane. The Porsche driver obviously took pity on us and allowed us in to what I can only describe as a scene of green opulence that was totally in keeping with itself but completely contradictory to the desert we had just ridden through. Fundamentally, the estate had one road around the outside (inside the perimeter), with large houses on either side, with the occasional cul-de-sac pointing to the middle, with more houses. In the middle was a lake where those with water-fronts had their jetties. The lake was artificial, no more than 10 feet deep and bright blue with treatment to keep the water devoid of growth.

Just a few years before, the Palm Springs ‘council’ (or whatever they are called) had told the private estates that they must fill in their lakes as the council would not be able to provide the water for it. So the residents dug their own borehole and maintain their own water flow. The trees and shrubs surrounding the lake and other watering is all fed from the same borehole. Other than the water, everything was green…. There were conditions within the home purchase contract, that you would keep your lawns neat, tidy and green. It turns out that most of the homes were second or third homes and many remain vacant for most of the year - though the boat parade brought many of them home for this event. I couldn’t help but wonder just how much the estate management fees were per year and it all felt crazy, given the desert just outside the fence.

Having settled ourselves in, we walked the estate and readied ourselves for the big event. The sun went down and all the lights were switched on. The palm trees were decked in lights fitted specifically for the festive season. Food and wine was supplied and we mingled with some of the residents as the boats paraded in the hope to be the winner. The boats are all electric, some with sunshades and some without. On each boat, up to 8 people would be partying as they followed the procession around the lake, each with inflatables and/or fairy lights in different colours. We, as land-lubbers, had to choose the best boat and the boat with the most votes would win. It felt like a different world, chatting to people who accumulated wealth that I could only ever imagine.

The next morning, as we were packing our bikes and readying ourselves for the journey in to Los Angeles, a family group we met from the night before, walked past the driveway and stopped to chat. One of the group, in a failed attempt to crack a joke, made some comment about needing to check the copper cables were still in the ground now the bikers had been let in. Yes, it was an attempt at a joke but did better to demonstrate that prejudice against bikers is alive and well. I made some half-hearted attempt at laughing it off, realising that anything I said would not change his mind, and not wanting to spoil what had been an awesome time being entertained by Tamara and Sheri - total legends that took us in and shared their life - thank you!

LA for Christmas was just the holiday we needed. Off the bikes for nearly 3 weeks, being normal in the nephews apartment (he went home) and pretending we weren’t vagrants…. Then, for New Year, we were invited to share family life with friends we had made in Seattle. Both Christmas and New Year were downtimes and very, very personal - we were normal for a short while. Those exploits may make a future blog but, from here, I skip on…. Thank you to those that made our holiday so special - you know who you are and we love you unreservedly. xxxx

Gold. Pure Gold!