“Yeah, Desert Sky - Dream beneath the Desert Sky”
A drive through Joshua Tree National Park might take a couple hours, viewing the park from the road. An exploration of the park would take a lifetime. Joshua Tree National Park has over 550,000 acres of wilderness filled with a variety of plants and animals that make their home in this land shaped by strong winds, unpredictable torrents of rain, and climatic extremes. Every now and then, man intrudes in this wilderness and leaves his brief, passing mark among the surreal geologic features that cover the landscape. Let’s go see what we can find.
While driving along a stretch of open road, something off in the distance catches my eye. Hmmmm, that demands investigation. T Red finds its way along a dirt road and up a slight hill to what appears to be the ruin of an old milling operation.
Read MoreI was heading north on the Old Dale Road, into the hotter, drier Colorado desert portion of J Tree. There are no Joshua Trees here, nor Pinyon Pines but the Old Dale Road leads to an abundance of mining history in both the Dale and the Monte Negras mining districts. My goal for the afternoon was to try to find three wells - once important water sources for the mines and the people who traveled the area.
Read MoreIt seems amazing to me that an operation as large as the Mission Mill evidently was, can have so little information concerning its owners and operation to be found. But I'll bet the information is out there somewhere, I just haven't looked in all the right places yet.
Read MoreJoshua Tree National Park, the California Gold Country, forgotten places in the Mojave Desert. These are a few of my favorite things.
