Most people, when they think of California, think of beaches, palm trees, famous bays, movie stars and glamor, and California has all of those things, but it also has a great deal more… desert for example.  90 miles from downtown Los Angeles is where the Joshua trees live and where I caught up with them a few years back while visiting relatives in the Antelope Valley in northern Los Angeles County.  I grew up in the San Fernando Valley some 50 miles south in the City of Los Angeles, and to be perfectly honest, I never thought much of the Antelope Valley; it was so desolate. On this occasion I came upon a vacant plot of land in an area that is mostly newer housing tracts, and paused for a little walk in the 110+ afternoon to snap a few photos.

It was not a nice lot, filled as it was with dirt, dead grass and nasty creatures. I saw the slither tracks of rattlesnakes, holes in the ground made by tarantulas, more than I’ve ever seen in fact. There we also lots of ant hills, some more than two feet in diameter… oh yes, and Joshua trees.

When I was a kid growing up not far from here, I always thought Joshua trees were kind of ugly, yet some people planted them in their yards; I don’t think I would ever do that. Even so, they do have a certain exotic look. As I walked around this field, feeling the hot afternoon sun, if I looked in the right direction it seemed as though I was way out in the desert, even though I was surrounded by suburbia. I kept exploring…

…and I came across the remains of a camp. There were several sleeping bags, quite a bit of clothing and a bunch of trash screened by the brush. Kids? Vagrants? Illegals? I don’t know, I sure wasn’t going to go poking around in the stuff, and if somebody is coming back here, I hope they know better than to climb back into those sleeping bags!

Why would anybody want to camp out here?

Desperation maybe.

That’s been going on out in the desert for a very long time, hasn’t it?

In the old days, they used to film Westerns nearby, I’ll bet you’ve seen some of them, you know, the ones with desert, lots of rock formations and of course… Joshua trees.  Yes, the more I think about it, they do have an exotic element to their appearance. Yes, exotic with a touch of desperation as they struggle to cling to life in a hostile environment. Yet, in a way, their image and haunting shapes are things that dreams are made of. Dreams of wild adventure, danger, and desperation… and old Hollywood epic romances.