Update: The Mother Road Route 66 Museum has since re-opened under new management. Route 66 has lost another gem. On July 23, 2024, the Route 66 Mother Road Museum in Barstow, California, announced on their Facebook page they were closing. The museum’s webpage says that they are “closed indefinitely,” stating water repairs in another part…
Have you ever wondered if the vastly different cities of Big Bear City and La Quinta, California, could possibly have anything in common? One is high in the San Bernardino mountains , a few minutes from Big Bear Lake, and the other is near the Santa Rosa mountains in the low desert, approximately an hour’s…
Update, November, 2025: Claudia and Jim Spotts have officially retired. We thank them for their years of dedication to the museum and wish them the best on their well-deserved retirement. Where did your intrepid Desert Way wanderers go today? Landers, California, of course. Why? Well, we were 31 years too late for the big earthquake,…
Consider the town of Goffs for a moment. You really should. You’ll feel much better. With a current population 23, plus or minus a few jackrabbits, and situated eleven miles from Interstate 40, Goffs is today a wealth of history, and ground zero for any serious study of the Mojave Desert. Originally named Blake, Goffs…
Update 12/08/21: Efforts to build a new community park at Historic Gilman Ranch in Banning will move forward after it received a grant from State Parks for more than $6 million for Stagecoach Stop Park. James Marshall Gilman was born in Meredith, New Hampshire, on June 9, 1842. As a young man, his parents sent…
Malki Museum, housed in a traditional one-room adobe building on the Morongo Reservation in Banning, California, is a walk through time, displaying in all its grandeur the history and culture of the Cahuilla (spoken as: ‘Caw-we-ah’) Native Americans. The pride shows, and the journey is well worth your time. Morongo is a word of Serrano…
Twentynine Palms Museum is housed in the oldest public building still in use in the Morongo Basin and provides visitors a chance to experience a 1920s era schoolroom. Townsfolk moved the city’s unique 1927 one-room school building to National Park Drive and redesigned the building to wind up as the Old Schoolhouse Museum. The Campbell…
Take a drive through Lake Havasu City today and it is hard to imagine a time when Jet Skis and speed boats weren’t racing through the wide expanse of blue water, or when Spring breakers and snow birds weren’t making it a prime destination in the desert. The London Bridge was purchased by Robert McCulloch…