More pits than palms

A story in today’s Washington Post travel section caught my eye. Well it actually stopped me in my tracks.

Twentynine Palms as a destination. Of all the places in California—even of all the places in the California desert—Twentynine Palms… Color me gobsmacked.

If you’ve ever been through there you’d be hard pressed to find a reason to pause—except, as the article’s writer points out, to “replenish their liquids”, presumably petrol & water. Then you’d haul ass on out towards Death Valley or Palm Springs.

But there are a couple of things about this story that just crack me up:

For blathering about how the 18 murals constitute a raison de visite, it’s interesting that Randall neither describes in detail them nor photographs them, other than a single picture—with the alleged artwork hidden behind signs, scraggly bushes & about 50 yards of Highway 62. Not even a link to the Chamber of Commerce’s site, where they obviously reach for the stars.

(BTW—if you go to that site, you have to drill down a considerable distance before you find the “Oasis of Murals”, which web site, as you’ll notice, is grainy & for sale.)

In fact, it’s interesting that the article’s “photo gallery” consists of but two pix, a view of Joshua Tree National Park & the aforementioned bizarrely composed picture. That tells it all—unless you’re into pix of the seedy sort of establishment that tends to encapsulate any large military installation or you really like cacti, there’s just not much to shoot.

As it happens, I do enjoy taking photos of such ventures:

Twentynine Palms Culture, May 2007.

(To tell you the truth, Randall doesn’t appear to be much of a photographer—that Joshua Tree shot doesn’t give you any sense of the expanse of the park, which is worth a visit, or the stark beauty of the vegetation there. Perhaps she was in a hurry to get back to the Bowladium.)

That insistence on the silence is a hoot—at night, perhaps. During the day, it’s somewhat compromised by armor & air maneuvers at the Marine base. Which facility is probably the only reason Twentynine Palms hasn’t completely blown away in the second half of the 20^th century.

MCAGCC also accounts for the town’s culture. Randall refers to barbershops & furniture rental stores. How she could leave out the bars, the tattoo parlors, the fast food joints & the practitioners of the Oldest Profession I don’t know. Not too many tourists would care about haircuts & dinettes; but a tap beer's a tap beer the world over.

Even the aerospace engineer she quotes retired to Yucca Valley.

I’m not sure what possessed the Post’s travel editors to print this story. Can the travel section have a slow news day?