A Fat Purple Fig

I am excited about the plan for Day 2 in Los Angeles. It is full, but doable. It reads as follows:

0930 La Brea Tar Pits
1030 drive to Joshua Tree
1330 hike
1430 drive to Palm Springs
1530 late lunch at Chef Tanya’s Kitchen
1630 mid-century architecture tour
1730 drive to Cabazon
1800 Morongo Reservation

The La Brea Tar Pits earned a spot on the list after I listened to ‘Deep Dive‘ on one of my favourite podcasts, Criminal. In it, David Mascarenas, Dive Supervisor for the Los Angeles Police Department, dives into the tar to retrieve evidence in a hazard suit that is gradually dissolving. For someone who hates the thought of being stuck in small spaces, the description of a dive into the equivalent of a thick, toxic pudding was both gripping and mortifying. We wake late, so the Tar Pits are the first pin to fall.

We hit the road, only to discover that our ‘time to destination’ has doubled since last night’s check. Kitty checks the flyer for the Morongo Pow Wow and starts to feel anxious that we will turn up late for the bird singing (it appears she is her mother’s daughter, after all). The calculations are now tight; Joshua Tree is the second pin to fall. One day, the hiker of my imagination will spring forth…but not today.

The traffic is woeful. LA drivers are rude and aggressive, and wield their vehicles like weapons. I leave a space whenever I spot a lane-change blinker, and they freeze, confused, having apparently never experienced the willing surrender of road space. As we drive, the ‘time to destination’ slowly climbs. The more we drive, the longer it will take us to get there. We are stuck in a time loop; a driving hamster wheel; a road to nowhere. A stop for truly-awful coffee costs us dearly, in dollars and time. We have forgotten the phone charger.

No Mid-Century Architecture Self-Guided Tour for us. Palm Springs drops.

The utes are huge, in height, length and width. Some have a huge gap between the wheels themselves and their frames. ‘Those lifts are huge. They’d be illegal in Australia,’ Kitty states, with an authoritive, car-person-of-the-family tone. They look like miniature monster trucks, designed to drive right over the top of other cars. They are untrustworthy. Others have double wheels, stretching to fill the width of the lane. A truck pushes in in front of us. ‘That’s a 450,’ Kitty tells me, before adding, ‘actually, it’s only a 150. Pussy.‘

Kitty abandons ship and begins reading on her phone. ‘I can read and have a conversation at the same time‘, she insists. I have news for her; chatbot Kitty is not a good conversationalist. I’m on my own. I am soothed by KRTH-FM, ‘where the 70s, 80s, and 90s live in Southern California‘. My ankle hurts from stopping and starting, but New Order helps. I like the signs. California fonts are retro. Do they know that, or is our retro, their modern?

The radio adverts are wild. ‘Kitty‘, I say, ‘quick, message me ‘all-over deodorant’‘, not wanting to forget the Secret Whole-Body Deodorant that can be used ‘down there‘, for ‘72 hours of freshness‘. Um…what? We hear the same Verizon advert ad infinitum, ‘Hamburger prices are up, but not Verizon, where you can get one line for $50 a month.‘ Surgical weight loss is plugged like diet shakes, followed by a not-insubstantial list of top-speed side effects. The landscape gradually turns into a somehow-familiar movie-desert.

I have relinquished control. C’est la vie. It is what it is. Whatever will be, will be. What better time to become a journey-over-destination person than in the midst of an endless journey? A destination (oasis?) soon appears to reward my wisdom, in the form of Hadley Fruit Orchards, owned by the Morongo Band of Mission Indians. We buy chargers on closing time, and sit in our poorly-parked Corolla, charging our phones. I get out and cross the road to snap this photo of the wind bending the fronds of the desert palms, as the setting sun casts shadows over the mountain.

Our two-hour trip has taken us five…but at least the final pin stands.