rattfan | It's Warm! In the Mojave Desert

It's Warm! The Mojave Desert

Lancaster is two hours outside of Los Angeles by car, which my friends K and C regard as just far enough. It's clear of the smog sink and the traffic congestion which make that city the world's largest parking lot. I think it's actually a city in its own right but it never seemed crowded. I rather like the desert. It's uncomplicated and what you see is definitely what you get.

I crashed out immediately for three hours after arrival, after which we went to a restaurant called Chillies, which sold western/mexican style food. Plane travel has the effect of making me lose my appetite so I hadn't had anything to eat since early in the journey. I still had trouble; a pity, because the offerings on the menu were the sort I would have liked to take a few months to work my way through! American servings are huge and I never did manage to finish anything.

I took another night and day to get over the jet lag and fatigue of the journey. Lancaster, being in the Mojave Desert, is one of the hottest regions of California and I'm afraid I courted heat stroke upon arrival by standing outside in a sort of trance, chanting, "It's warm! It's warm!" It certainly was - around 38 to 40^C, from memory - but I had just emerged from one of the colder winter days Perth can produce and felt the need to thaw.

This was my second visit to K and C, whom I met through the international Rat Fan Club, back in the days of paper newsletters, so they have nothing to do with science fiction fandom. I got to cuddle their present rats, Zipper and Tigger, or at least Tigger. Zipper, who got his name from his habit of zipping out of sight, took more time to convince that I was not going to eat him. These guys are rescue rats of a different kind than we're used to in Australia; they were saved from a feeder tank. Zipper is agouti hooded, Tigger a bareback blaze, meaning he is all white with colour only on his head, agouti again, with a white blaze down his face.

We took it easy to begin with, doing only a short local trip to Charlie Brown's on the 20th, a store containing the most amazing selection of junk and kitsch I've ever seen. I'd been there on the previous trip and hoped to find a suitable junk gift for a friend. No luck but K and I did find fridge magnets for ourselves, "Lab Rats Have More Meaningful Careers Than I Do!" Not true in K's case; she is retired from nursing but runs a "factory" in her sewing room making toys for refugee children. I leave it to the reader to judge the accuracy in my case.

In my paper journal I ask the question, "Why does one always work harder when on holiday?" It seems that even though one has caught up on sleep, one is never quite rested. I think it's partly that everything is unfamiliar, so one is on alert and has more figuring out to do than in the comfort zoned tracks of home. On the 21st July, both K and I had plenty of that to do as we took the train to Los Angeles to visit the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits. K isn't that familiar with LA as of course, like any resident of a place, she doesn't visit the tourist spots unless she's got a tourist in tow. The day involved a lot of waiting, since the train didn't arrive when we expected it to. A lot of other people were likewise stranded so it wasn't just us.

The train, a three-tiered Metrolink, takes two hours to cover sagebrush-covered desert and hills, trailer parks, horse yards and expensive homes perched precariously and inexplicably on the tops of hills. This, according to K, is where you like to live if you're from LA and have made a lot of money. We agreed we'd prefer to be a bit closer to the comforts of civilization ourselves and speculated that the rich types no doubt sent someone else out to the store when it was time to stock up. One unusual sight from the train is Shambala, a big cats refuge run by Tippi Hedren of "The Birds" fame. Leopards and mountain lions could be seen sprawled on the roofs of their dens. Many of these are ex-pets.

Apart from the La Brea museum and pits themselves, I could easily skip Los Angeles. Too big, too crowded, too frantic, too everything. Our first stop at the museum was the cafe to refuel and sit for a bit, then we checked out a lot of very large bones which used to be walking around the site quite some years ago. Nobody was in the glass-bowl lab unfortunately. I can't imagine what it must feel like to be a scientist working away and having a mob of tourists peering in at you as though you were just another exhibit.

The following day was a rest day to hang out and do some laundry. We did drive out to visit another big cat refuge, this one a breeding centre for endangereds. On that note, there was an announcement in the newspaper this day that wolves were back on the Endangered Species list, placed there by a judge in Montana. This is an extremely unusual outcome from that state.

Seen from car this day, a sign; "The Great White" with shark image and lettering, Cynthia K. White, the Law Offices Of.

My friends C and K are ardent Republicans, so a visit to the Reagan Library was next on the list. This is a museum, not a library, which is set up for a president upon his leaving office. After his death, it becomes more of a shrine. This one is a huge place featuring memorabilia from throughout Ronald Reagan's life and also a walk-through the actual Air Force One used by Reagan and several other presidents before him. The plane is a surprise for its relatively small size and modest furnishings. Anyone who had travelled Economy from Australia would look at it with envy but as a vehicle of state, it was definitely low-key. I believe the newest plane is a lot bigger and fancier.

The museum stands high in the brown Californian hills overlooking desert valleys. Out front is a replica of the White House's Rose Garden, including the most hilarious sign I ever saw for keeping children out of the hedge surrounding it: Preferred Rattlesnake Habitat.

On 24 July I moved on to San Francisco.

To be continued in:

This is Not California, This is San Francisco!

It's Warm! In the Mojave Desert

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