The middle of nowhere. This phrase is used a bit too loosely these days. Apparently anything outside of the big city is considered “nowhere”. The drive between Los Angeles and Las Vegas is often referred to in this way. Hundreds of thousands of cars overflowing in both directions every week between two of the biggest hotspots in the west is hardly nowhere.
When I found myself driving through the Imperial Valley recently, that felt like the middle of nowhere. I’ve been driving for a few hours at this point, heading out from the south end of Joshua Tree National Park, and still have not found the Salton Sea. It may all be desert out here, but the changes in landscape can be stark and beautiful. I left behind the high desert lands heaped with mountains made up of giant boulders and descended back down to sea level (and below), towering embankments on either side of the road. An eerie desert tunnel under the blazing summer sun. It’s hot and it’s strange out here.
I have not seen another person in hours. This stretch of desert makes Joshua Tree look metropolitan. There is always something strange to me seeing the high desert coffee shops filled with yuppies on their laptops and the park roads lined with BMWs and Teslas. We pretend to be getting away from the hustle and bustle of our city lives yet we all flock to the same campgrounds and grab drinks from the same hip desert bars. It seems that we run into many of the people that we come out here to escape from. The American desert is enormous and we are all playing on the same tiny stretch of it. Well, good, because that makes it much easier to truly get away from all the noise. Let them pretend to get away so I can get away from them.
In my attempts to get away from people, I tend to get lost fairly often. I’m not a fan of cell phone maps; phone die, service drops and I feel like I miss out on the best parts of a journey when sole focused on point A to point B. I much prefer a paper map but, being a shitty navigator, this results in more than a few wrong turns in my travels. Such as this moment. I did cross the 10 freeway not too long ago, so I can’t be too remote but wherever I am feels worlds away form anywhere else I’ve been. Winding roads in the middle of this desolate stretch of Southern California, it’s beautiful but it’s a little nerve-racking.
Now this feels remote and I’m not quite sure where I am exactly. I know Palm Springs must be over that way somewhere, not too far, I think, I hope. Yet there is nothing here and the swanky vibes of that desert oasis couldn’t be further removed from this strange place. It’s flat here and I can see for miles. Miles of brown sand and spinning clouds of dust peppered through this sweltering valley. I swear I see some green ahead, not just green but the brightest, most vibrant green that I have ever seen. A mirage, perhaps? As I get closer to these apparitions, I see that they are, in fact, real. Right here, in the middle of the desert, in between Joshua Tree and the Salton Sea stands these seemingly out of place farms of palm trees. Beautiful towering rows of palms right in the middle of the Imperial Valley. I see these giant bags tied up beneath the fronds of each tree and realize that these are date palms and this must be a date farm. Apparently dates palm trees thrive in desert climates and they certainly appear to be thriving here.
There was something eerie and dreamlike about these stately gardens of date palms in the middle of the desert valley. It’s so still and quiet here, deathlike. There is that haze of extreme heat that rests over everything, thickening the air and giving off a strange ghostly energy. Hours on the road and not a soul in sight. Am I dreaming? Has the world ended during my travels? Have I taken a wrong turn into a different dimension? Are there not date farmers that maintain these trees? Where am I? Somewhere, I suppose, in the Imperial Valley.