Kelso, California

Kelso's former depot

Kelso, a ghost town in the middle of the Mojave, was built to serve the railroad. The Union Pacific line from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles came through the area in 1890. Kelso (named after a railroad employee who had his name selected at random) is located near a natural spring and deposits of lead ore, factors which led to its selection as the site of a railroad depot. Built in 1924, it served the railroad until 1985. Concerned citizens saved it from demolition, and it is now a very attractive Visitor Center for the Mojave National Preserve.

Kelso’s heyday was in the 1940s, when iron ore from the nearby Vulcan mine was shipped to the west coast and made into steel for Liberty ships during World War 2.

S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien, a WW2 Liberty Ship

When the mine closed in 1948, the local economy went into a tailspin. During the 1970s Kelso was known as the town without television. About 75 residents lived in Kelso, many with school age children. Television signals could not reach the town which meant that residents found other methods of recreation. Children played outside until dark. Adults sat outside and talked together. With the advent of satellite dishes, this desert utopia did not last.

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The Mojave Road

The Mojave Road southeast of Baker, California
The Mojave Road is an ancient trading trail which crosses the Mojave Desert and bisects the Mojave National Preserve from east to west. In former times it connected the villages of the Mojave Indians along the Colorado River with the tribes of the California coast. The Mojave were an agricultural people who were blessed with an abundance of crops, giving them great freedom to travel.

In 1776 a Spaniard, Friar Francisco Garces, became the first European to mingle with the Mojave and utilize their network of desert trails. The Mojave Indians guided him from the Colorado River to the mission of San Gabriel.

Garces wrote about his 1776 journey and produced this map.

Following the natural contours of the land, the Mojave Road was the preferred means of transportation through the area until the coming of the Union Pacific railroad in 1890. The road is popular today as a 4 x 4 route.















Indian petroglyphs near the Mojave Road
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The Kelso Dunes

The Kelso Dunes cover 45 square miles just southwest of Kelso, California, in the Mojave National Preserve (a 1.6 million-acre tract within the Mojave Desert). The dunes are about 700 feet high, and were created over a span of 25,000 years by winds carrying grains of sand from the northwest. The sand was stopped in its path by mountains to the south and east. The dunes are golden in color, contrasting with the much darker hues of the surrounding topography.

These dunes share an interesting characteristic with some 30 other dunes around the world: they make an odd booming sound (similar to that of a low-flying airplane) when sheets of sand cascade down and rub against stationary sand below. Always eager to experience some free entertainment, we hiked over a mile through the sand until we reached dunes of sufficient slope to create the odd sounds.



The going was not easy, and Mom was a real trooper. It requires some effort to trudge through soft sand, and soon our shoes and socks were full of it. The temp rose to the upper 80s in the early afternoon, and when we reached the steeper slopes the sweat started to pour. It was interesting all along the way to see fringe-toed lizards quickly dart underfoot to the safety of nearby creosote bushes.

Finally we reached a sufficient gradient to create the booming. By running down the steep slope, causing sand to tumble below, I heard what to me sounded like “Thoom Thoom Thoom”. Susan believes the sound is “Whump Whump Whump,” but no matter. The sand really does vibrate like a musical instrument!




















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Mojave Desert

Cinder cones between Kelso and Baker, California
I was ignorant of the fact that there are four deserts in North America. The Mojave is the smallest of these, but at over 25,000 square miles it is still the size of the state of Ohio. Most of the Mojave is in southeastern California. The land is diverse: scrub land, sand dunes, volcanic cinder cones and mountain-top forests are all found here.

Sand dunes near Stovepipe Wells in Death Valley.
Nearly 300 species of animals live here. Vegetation is sparse, but common plants include the creosote bush, Mojave yucca, Joshua tree, sage brush, juniper and pinon pine. Summer temperatures often exceed 100° F. Humans have lived in the region since the end of the Ice Age. The Southern Paiute peoples (including the Chemehuevi, Shoshone, Serrano and Kawaiisu) dominated the eastern and northeastern Mojave region, while the Mojave Indians lived along the Colorado River at the eastern edge of the desert.

The Joshua tree is a symbol of the Mojave, and is fascinating to a first-timer like me. It looks like a small tree which, instead of leaves, hosts grafted pineapples or baseball gloves at the end of its branches. Actually a species of yucca (Yucca brevifolia), the Joshua can grow up to 50 feet tall. It occurs only in this desert, and only at higher elevations, prefering flat areas or gradual inclines such as the alluvial fans which are common here. It is pollinated by only a single species of yucca moth.

In California Without California Cuisine

FYI: I was without Internet for the past three days, but should have it every day now. I've got a lot to tell about from the Mojave Desert and Death Valley, and will try to get caught up soon. This posting says the 24th, but I am actually getting it on the net late night on the 26th. Thanks for your patience!!

I am sort of in the doghouse for neglecting to bring certain items in the cooler with me from Oakland, such as bagels, sun-dried tomatoes, guacamole, and humus. Susan’s packing instructions just said to take these from the refrigerator “if I wanted to make a sandwich”.

I did think about it, and decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. I had a mission--getting to Las Vegas in time to pick everyone up--and I wouldn't be diverted from that mission to make sandwiches.

Well, it turns out that I misinterpreted things. I was supposed to bring these items for EVERYBODY's eating pleasure. When I met Susan and Tools again in Las Vegas (they flew there, while I drove the distance from their house in Oakland), she scolded me mildly and commented “I forgot how literally my brother takes things.”

After realizing my failure, they tried valiantly to bring some of these items from home with them on their flight to Vegas, but it's enough to say that some TSA agent in San Francisco is now enjoying a nice humus sandwich.

Where's lunch? I let them down

Primm, Nevada

Once I had picked up everyone at the airport, we traded in the traffic and crowds of Vegas for more crowds in literally the middle of nowhere: Primm, Utah, home of a giant casino complex, hotel, outlet mall and amusement park, all under one management. Nothing else is there, well except for a gas station.

Primm's raison d'être is explained by the fact that it lies on Exit 1 of Interstate 15, as close as one can be to California and still gamble legally. Rising like Oz from the Mojave Desert, Primm beckons to gamblers from Los Angeles who can't wait to get started, or can't bear to quit until they finally must return home.

Our reasons for staying here were twofold: 1) being Friday, hotel prices in Vegas were astronomical, and 2) we would be 38 miles closer to the places we wanted to see on Saturday.


So, we entered the smoky city/casino/hotel called Whiskey Pete's, tramped past the slot machines with our suitcases to the elevators in the back (which we shared with a somewhat drunk patron who had been ensconced here all week), and rode up to the 16th floor for a night's sleep.

Not much need for gardeners outside my hotel window.

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This isn't the way to Vegas !!

From now on, I should really take a look at the map or believe my GPS when it tells me my drive will take over seven hours instead of the four that I expect. I left Bakersfield Friday morning confident in my ability to arrive at the Las Vegas airport in time to meet my mom’s flight from Des Moines, which was scheduled to arrive at 2:35PM. The one place I had to find was Barstow, California and from there it is a straight shot on I-15 right up to Vegas. There is only one interstate highway near Bakersfield (I-5), and I assumed it would lead me right to Barstow. Uhh, not quite!

I started to take it southward, and after 30 miles or so wondered why there were no signs for Barstow…although I was seeing plenty for Los Angeles! Finally I pulled over to check the atlas, and had a sinking feeling: the actual road I wanted from Bakersfield was not this interstate at all, but a state highway that led southwest from the city.

Luckily, a detour in the form of state highway 138 presented itself shortly, and I was soon screaming eastward following south of the range of the Tehachapi mountains. I had wasted about 50 miles, and was in all probability not going to be in Vegas in time to meet my mom’s flight.

On the way I passed several interesting sights, such as Edwards Air Force Base and Mojave Airport, which appears to be a kind of jetliner junkyard, with dozens of widebody jets outside, waiting to be made into scrap.

Mojave Airport

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you: I got to Las Vegas airport two minutes ahead of Mom.

Bakersfield, California

I left Oakland yesterday afternoon, on my way to Las Vegas. I traveled down the Central Valley on I-5, hugging the east side of the Coastal Range. The landscape is open and dry, with no hint of the Sierra Nevada range off to the east. Cattle grazing and a variety of orchards are the main uses to which the land is put. An impressive array of wind turbines lines the ridge near where I-580 and I-5 meet, about 25 miles southwest of the East Bay.

You can check out my general plans for this trip at Community Walk

My only stop, after four hours of driving, was Bakersfield, where I spent the night. This is a city of several hundred thousand people, about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles. It is a clean and prosperous city, fattened by oil and ranching. I entered from the northwest and saw many residential neighborhoods surrounded by concrete walls. The homes behind the walls appeared spacious and comfortable.

After checking into my motel around 5PM, I went for a short run and then hopped into the car in search of the downtown, about five miles from the motel. Bakersfield is not a high-rise city, so without a map the downtown would be hard to find.

While clean (even the alleyways!) and not unattractive, neither is it overly impressive--but maybe I'm just hard to impress. It appears to be mostly an assemblage of government and financial buildings interspersed with small shops, such as jewelers, tobacconists and markets. There were not many people on the streets. The city obviously has a large Latino community, so I opted for a burrito at Los Altos and headed back home.