Panamint Springs, CA
I was brought back to California as abruptly as I had left
it. Humans aren’t meant to fly. We were meant to take long arduous journeys on
foot from place to place. Instead we transport ourselves much faster than our
natural speed would allow, disorienting us once we arrive at a far off land
much too soon. My cat Edwood made the journey with me, and she continuously
howled on both the flight from Boston to D.C and D.C to San Francisco, despite
the xanax I had given her. However once on flat ground and out of a
shoebox-sized kennel of torture, she’s adjusted very well to the transient
life.
The
first four days after my return were spent in my boyfriend’s damp VW van in Big
Sur amongst sopping wet redwoods. It would rain one day and try to dry up the
next, only to rain again the day after. It was time to find the sun.
On
the fifth day he packed up his VW, I my Honda, and we made our way off the
coast and inland towards the desert. Neither of us knew that highway 58 towards
Bakersfield was a windy mountain road. And neither of us knew that our road had
no services for 83 miles, nor that there would be a blanket of fog and rain
surrounding us as we descended into California’s valley. But we found all this
out, and that the VW will stop running if it has to travel 83 miles on a ¼ tank
of gas. My GPS told me that there was a miraculous shell station along a
farming road. There was not. We ditched the van, Alma, alongside a field of
freshly turned with soil that would stick to our shoes in clumps 2 inches
thick.
After
getting gas in my car and buying one of those red tanks for Alma, we were on
our way again. I woke up in the back of Alma on a residential street in
Bakersfield to cloudy skies once again. Angered that such a flat, low valley
would have any weather other than sunshine, I felt the need to press on until
the weather I sought was attained.
We continued along 58 through small hills and more windy roads until,
quite suddenly, the wall of fog ended and we were slung into the relentless
sunshine that I had been seeking.
The
desert slowly presented itself, first in yellow hills speckled with green
shrubs, then with Joshua trees playfully announcing themselves out of the
earth, and later with not much to speak of but sandy soil. The road became
straight and monotonous, yet soothing to the traveler who has constantly been
turning their steering wheel in one direction, then all the way in the other.
We
stopped at a Mexican restaurant in Olancha, which is essentially a converted
gas station advertising jerky made from all different kinds of creatures. The restaurant was across the parking
lot from the jerky store and there was a window that looked out upon the desert
stretching on and on. I felt as if the window had this scene painted on it
instead of it being my reality. I admittedly still feel very uncomfortable in
the desert.
On
we pressed and suddenly down once again. We had gained about 4000 feet on our
drive and we needed to descend to 2000.
Edwood could not believe that a landscape could be so vast when she saw
the overlook to Panamint Valley. She stood at the door of the van for an
awe-inspired moment before coming outside.
Panamint
Springs resort is a privately owned restaurant, cabins, and gas station at the
mouth of Panamint Valley, just across a mountain range or two from Death
Valley. My boyfriend will live here and wait tables while I will be about an
hour and a half south in Inyokern. They’ve given him a trailer to live in,
which I see as a deluxe suite. The bedroom is one of those lofts and there is a
kitchen nook, a bathroom and shower, a stove, and a couch, and millions of
cabinets. That one can pee, wash their hands, take a shower, and then cook
dinner in this thing is almost unfathomable to me. Luxury wilderness.
Edwood
and I will shove off tomorrow to begin my life as a cowgirl once again.
