Desert days

Just back from a day and a half in the Mojave desert.  It's only about 3 hours drive away from Los Angeles but could be light years away in terms of landscape and society.  From the ritzy, hyper-manicured gardens in the district of Brentwood we drove east through LA and along the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains (with pockets of snow on the highest peaks already).  Then north through one of the mountain passes, crossing the San Andreas fault as we started to head into drier territory. Here the landscape is dominated by scrubby vegetation and lots of abandoned homesteads. We visited the Mojave National Preserve, which contains a wonderful array of landscapes (old lava flows, big sand dunes, weathered granites, salt pans).  It also hosts the California State University's desert research center at the wonderfully-named Zzyzx (pronounced zye -six).  This used to be a religious spa resort (only in California!), but now supports field courses on all aspects of desert life and landscape.

The view from Zzyzx across Soda Lake - all salt and no lake