The Bristol Mountains rise between Ludlow and Kelbaker Road like a long, sun‑scorched barricade, the kind of range that looks less formed than forged. On one side, Route 66 snakes past in its slow, nostalgic way, carrying the ghosts of road‑trippers and the last stubborn believers in Americana. On the other side of that big…
UPDATE July 9, 2025: Will the 625,000 acres Chuckwalla National Monument in Riverside County keep its designation? This spring President Donald Trump asked the Department of the Interior to consider removing those protections. In May the Department of Justice concluded that the president “can and should” reverse the monument designations. Many thanks to La Quinta…
There are currently 649 Cracker Barrel locations across the United States. But California was not one of them.
If you lived in California’s high desert, and got a craving for Cracker Barrel’s Southern specialties, you had to plan for a long road trip. The closest ones were in Kingman and in Yuma, Arizona, both respectfully over 200 miles away.
We know, because we’ve done it. More than once. Until now…
Rambling down old Highway 62, near the Coxcomb Mountains, tends to churns up images from the past. Not in a psychological or psychedelic way, of course. Just the history of this great land, and the people who came before us. About where this road is today was the route taken by a little known mountain…
We get asked quite often, “How do you find all the places you write about?” Here’s our secret. It’s all about guidebooks. Some armchair experts may try to tell you how challenging it is to get to a particular site, but if you have the right information about how to get there and what to…
We had an amazing adventure exploring lovely Afton Canyon. The Mojave River flows above ground here and ranges from a small creek to a couple of feet deep depending on seasonal rainfall totals. Afton Canyon lies in part along the old Mojave Indian Trail, near the 35th parallel, that extended from the Colorado River to…
The first peoples of the Mojave Desert used a rich language of symbolism that could be interpreted by others. Petroglyphs dot rocky landscape throughout the desert and are a remnant of the past. They can be hundreds to thousands of years old.
For us and countless others, Jevetta Steele’s haunting lyrics from the song, “Calling You,” from the 1987 indie cult classic “Bagdad Cafe” will forever evoke the particularities of a small desert town on Route 66 contrasted with the vastness of the Mojave Desert. However, Bagdad Cafe was not actually shot in Bagdad. Not Bagdad, California, and not Baghdad, Iraq. The award-winning German film, directed by Percy Adlon, was filmed in Newberry Springs at the former Sidewinder Cafe, which decided to let the name “Bagdad Cafe” live on, drawing throngs of international tourists.
We were lucky enough to follow along some of Union Pacific steam locomotive Big Boy 4014’s historic journey as it passed through the Mojave Desert from Colton, California to Cheyenne, Wyoming for restoration. Much to the delight of railfans like us, Big Boy’s first scheduled stop was at scenic Mormon Rocks in the Cajon Pass.
Big Boy’s next stop was The Harvey House Railroad Depot in Barstow, originally known as the Casa del Desierto. It was Big Boy’s first visit in 50 years. Would the bittersweet reunion be its last?
In 1915, Stephen “Desert Steve” Albert Ragsdale, originally from Coffeyville, Kansas, rattled his way west, coaxing an early‑model automobile across the Mojave as if stubbornness alone could substitute for horsepower. He was bound for a business conference in Los Angeles, because apparently the best route to professional success was straight through a sun‑scorched nowhere, but…
