I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For — But I’m Close

EDITOR’S NOTE: Please welcome Shellevation’s first guest blogger! I gave my husband, Kenley, the reins to the site temporarily so he could write about his visit last month to Joshua Tree National Park.

As anyone who knows me can attest, I am not the outdoor type. I crave my creature comforts, and I bruise and burn far too easily. God knows what would become of me were I left unattended in the wilderness.

But Joshua Tree National Park has always held a certain sway in my mind. Part of its charm is no doubt entwined with a 1987 album release by U2. For whatever that band’s latter-day sins, “The Joshua Tree” remains a powerful, utterly non-ironic landmark record, and I learned a lot from it.

Yet the area is more than just an album title. The landscape is so striking — particularly the western half of the park, which is Mojave Desert habitat — that it seems almost like an alien moon. In fact, I’m reminded of the place now every time I see pictures from the Curiosity rover on Mars. The park is so gorgeously solemn and bare … well, except for the Joshua trees themselves, of course, which dot the park in every direction.

So when Shelley and I moved to L.A., Joshua Tree National Park immediately landed on our list of “Things We Have to See or Do While Out West.” And at a mere two hours and change from our apartment, it made a perfect day trip for Malia the husky and me:

Shelley had to work that day, so I wanted company on my journey. Technically, pets are restricted, as they are in many national parks. They must remain on a leash at all times, and they have to be kept off main trails, staying within 100 feet of the highway. But I was passing through for a relatively short period of time, so Malia never posed much of a threat to the environment.

I stopped at the park’s first public entrance, walked into the ranger station and explained my situation: I was going to be spending only about four hours at most in Joshua Tree before heading back to L.A., so I needed advice on hitting just the big “must-sees” nearby. The ranger was friendly and happy to oblige, highlighting my trail map with several possible stops, including:

• Hidden Valley
• Cap Rock
• Keys View
• Skull Rock
• Oasis of Mara

It was then that I realized just how vast Joshua Tree is. According to the map, my brief drive was going to cover barely one-tenth or so of the full park.

When I drove through the park gate, a few hours before sunset, it was almost as if I’d entered another country. The temperature dropped dramatically, the ground on either side of the highway became rocky and burnt-orange, and the park’s signature trees started filling in my side-view mirrors like an army:

These weren’t the first Joshua trees I’d spotted; you start glimpsing them as you enter the aptly named city of Twentynine Palms — a tree or two sprouting up near a road sign, or a gnarled and derelict specimen arching over a roadway.

But their sheer numbers are overwhelming once you enter the park. I must have pulled the car off the road 10 times in those first 10 minutes, trying to capture with my pitiful iPhone the bizarre beauty surrounding me on all sides:

The Joshua tree isn’t actually a “tree” at all, but a species of the yucca desert plant. As the park brochure notes, they can grow to more than 40 feet tall, and from February to April they bloom with cream-colored flowers. American Indians used the plant to make baskets and sandals, as well as the occasional meal. Here’s how the park says the plant got its name:

“By the mid-19th century, Mormon immigrants had made their way across the Colorado River. Legend has it that these pioneers named the tree after the biblical figure Joshua, seeing the limbs of the tree as outstretched in supplication, guiding the travelers westward.”

By this point in the trip, Malia the husky was also “outstretched in supplication” in the back seat, so I pulled off at a picnic/camping area and let her roam around with me a little bit. I don’t know what it’s like in the rest of the park, but I was struck by how odd this setup seemed here. It didn’t at all resemble campsites from the movies. There were no tents or sleeping bags or open fires or roasting marshmallows or hippies with guitars.

Instead, it appeared to me that RVs and campers here apparently just pull off the main drag, park by the roadside and hang out. Some folks were gathered on the roofs of their vehicles, and others had set up folding chairs right outside. But it didn’t particularly seem like anyone around me was “preparing to camp out” anytime soon.

Maybe that’s how it is in the winter. Too cold to sleep outside in those months?

Still, there was plenty of natural beauty to drink in.

My main goal was to get to Keys Point, a lookout spot that the ranger had recommended, at an elevation of some 5,185 feet. I anticipated some dramatic views there, and I wasn’t disappointed. I went from an alien moon, it seemed, to Middle Earth.

From this point in the park, you can see all the way to the mysterious Salton Sea, that faint, shimmering body of water in the background:

The Salton Sea is a shallow, extraordinarily salty “rift lake” that was created quite accidentally around the turn of the last century. The California Development Co. was attempting to construct irrigation canals in the region, but clearly things didn’t go exactly as planned. Basically, thanks to major flooding mishaps, the town of Salton was eventually submerged, and the continued intermittent flooding actually led to the construction of the Hoover Dam.

Like Joshua Tree, The Salton Sea is by turns bizarre and fascinating. There’s no outflow, so the ecosystem is in a constant state of flux. Its salinity is higher than you’ll find in seawater, which causes massive “kills,” in which dead fish are left awash on its shore. What’s more, it’s a known geothermal hot spot, with mud volcanoes belching gas and steam into the air.

Oh, and it sits over the notorious San Andreas Fault. It’s almost mythic, this place. Like Mount Doom.

Naturally, The Salton Sea is also on my list of places to visit out West.

More views from Keys Point:

Disaster nearly befell me after Keys Point. Not the “127 Hours” kind of disaster, granted, but still bad news for any blogger. The battery in my iPhone (which I’d used to navigate myself to the park) died, taking my camera with it.

Fortunately, I had a backup. Shelley had left her “Bloggie” camera in the glove box. It, too, had only a little juice left, but it was enough for me to snap some photos of my intrepid partner as we explored the formations near Skull Rock on our way out of the park.

Joshua Tree — what little I saw of it, anyway — made an impression on me, and it was a nice adventure to share with Malia. It was the first time I’d spent an entire day with my best girl in … well … far too long.

Next time, I hope Shelley can join us — though she may not be up for a dip in The Salton Sea just yet.

Quite the Endeavour

Forget the Lakers or Clippers. One of the hottest tickets to get in Los Angeles in recent months has been for the space shuttle Endeavour, housed at the California Science Center at USC.

But being the planner that I am, I scored tickets to the exhibit just nine days after it opened.

Kenley and I, along with many other Los Angelenos, have been fascinated by the Endeavour ever since it flew over the city while perched atop a 747 in September.

I was working a copy-editing shift at The Hollywood Reporter on Wilshire that Friday, but there wasn’t much editing going on as most of us tuned into online updates about the location of the shuttle. We finally abandoned all pretenses of work and took to the office terrace to try to spot the Endeavour. Below us, people were gathering along the sidewalks looking toward the sky. Above us, others gathered on rooftops, pointing and shouting as the shuttle came into view. It flew along the Hollywood Hills, headed downtown and circled back toward LAX on its final flight.

Kenley spotted it near our apartment on the west side, closer to LAX, where the shuttle landed to stay for a few days before beginning the journey to its destination at the Science Center.

In this case, iPhone cameras clearly didn’t do the shuttle justice. But strategically positioned Los Angeles Times photographers using much bigger lenses captured great shots of the shuttle over the Hollywood sign, Griffith Park, the Santa Monica Pier and other city landmarks.

People in L.A. tend to play it cool and rarely get excited about celebrity sightings. And because the city is so sprawling and so diverse, there are few legitimate communal experiences. But on that really hot Friday afternoon, everyone in the city — even the celebrities — seemed to be starstruck.

The LA Times reported that Tom Hanks, who played Cmdr. Jim Lovell in the movie “Apollo 13,” tweeted:

“Just flew over my head!!! Don’t see this everyday. Never will again. The Spaceman in me just went berserk.”

About a month later, the Endeavour began a very slow, two-day trek along a 12-mile path from LAX to the Science Center. Kenley and I regret not joining the millions of people lining its path as it made the trek. I think we were among the few who heeded the warnings by officials to steer clear. But luckily, the LA Times put together a time lapse video that makes you feel as if you were there.

Kenley and I got our closeup of the shuttle about a week after it went on display at the California Science Center on the campus of the other USC. I had ordered tickets online just before the exhibit opened. Kenley’s middle brother, Logan, was in town for the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellowship, and we headed to see the Endeavour after our tour of Paramount Studios.

Logan in front of the other USC football stadium

We walked right through the maze of ropes put in place for anticipated large weekend crowds. There’s a small exhibit before you get to the space shuttle that illustrates the shuttle’s history — and the role that California played in the construction of the Endeavour, which was built to replace the Challenger. Much of the shuttle was built by Rockwell International Corp. in Palmdale, Calif.

The first thing you see? The space toilet, part of a display about how astronauts relieve themselves in space. Yikes.

There’s also a shuttle simulator, which was a little lame, and a short video. The exhibit obviously needs to be better organized, but the main attraction, of course, is the shuttle itself. You have to wind through the space center a bit more before you get to a large hangar-like structure, where the shuttle is on display — and where it will remain until the Science Center raises enough funds for a new air and space center. The plan is for the shuttle to be displayed upright, as if it’s about to launch.

You might expect Endeavour to be sleek and shiny, like something made by Apple. But the space shuttle is weathered, and its black tip kinda makes it look like it has a big, wet dog nose. It already feels sort of dated, maybe because it’s basically housed in a museum.

Still, the sheer size of the Endeavour is impressive, and it’s just mind-blowing when you think about where it’s been.

Kenley says it reminded him of being on the hangar deck in “Battlestar Galactica” — surrounded by rusted, obsolete, beaten-up equipment that’s clearly seen better days. And yet it’s bursting with so much character and history that it almost feels alive, and infinitely more inspiring than a brand-new vessel hot off the Cylon assembly line.

Nerd alert, huh?

I’m glad we visited on a day when it wasn’t too crowded because we were able to get photos of the Endeavour from every angle:

After geeking out over the space shuttle, we attempted to re-establish our cool cred at a hot restaurant in town — Ink, by “Top Chef” winner Michael Voltaggio.

Voltaggio was the chef at Jose Andres’ The Bazaar (our favorite restaurant in L.A.), before he defeated his brother in the Season 6 finale of “Top Chef.”

Ink opened in the fall of 2011 and was named the best new restaurant of 2012 by GQ.

Our favorite things we ordered:

–Poutine with chickpea fries, yogurt curds and lamb neck gravy

–Ham and manchego biscuits with almond butter (pictured below)

–Brussels sprouts with pig ears and lardo (pictured below and resembling a “Clash of the Titans” monster, as one of Kenley’s Facebook friends commented)

The food was good, but not quite as experimental as The Bazaar and not quite as memorable as Animal, where we ate earlier this year.