#desert america

[ashtrayfloors]

Meanwhile, Fred Drake was gathering an ever-growing low-rent boho crowd around him at Rancho de la Luna. It was a place of old carpet and couches, coiled audio cables hanging neatly from nails on the walls alongside his cowboy and matador memorabilia. At one end of the living room was an old cast-iron wood-burning stove and at the other a vintage 1970s sixteen-track mixing board with a one-and-a-half-inch reel-to-reel, in open defiance of the digital turn in the recording industry. Fred became known as the “mayor of Joshua Tree” (the village had no official governing body) as more and more friends from Los Angeles made the trip to record, and then friends of friends.

Fred was dying all the while, but he took his time. He refused AZT, calling it “rat poison.” He consulted personally with Jonas Salk and participated in an unsuccessful clinical trial for a vaccine. There were bouts with lung cancer, brain tumors, and opportunistic infections, all of which meant frequent trips to the hospital “down below,” as locals referred to journeys of necessity on Highway 62 to Palm Springs or other civilized points beyond.

Fred was dying for so long that we thought he was just going on living. Which, in many essential ways, he was. He smoked (first Marlboro reds, then American Spirit blues, and, of course, pot), enjoyed the occasional shot of tequila. He made music, held court, ranted, engineered for the increasing number of bands that booked sessions at the Rancho. Word had spread. Hanging there were the likes of Daniel Lanois, who produced U2’s The Joshua Tree, the band’s biggest critical and commercial success. (The album’s only connection to the Mojave desert was a photo shoot that took place there after recording, which provided cover art and its title, transforming the lyrics and music into an iconic desert sound.) The Louisiana native Victoria Williams, a brilliant, idiosyncratic figure in American roots music, bought a place a few blocks down the road from Fred and recorded one of her finest albums with him.

The Rancho had become a kind of pop shrine, and Fred a bona fide “personality,” a guru for musicians and assorted scruffy creative types. And how could we not bow down before him? The gay cowboy rocker who could sing “Blue Moon” in a sweet croon that was simultaneously ethereal, earthy, and erotic; who rode his regal Arabian stallion, Kashmir, bareback at sunrise or down to the saloon on Highway 62 (Victoria Williams immortalized horse and rider in a song); who led us along a moonlit trail in the Monument, showing us the graves of gunslingers, crouching low to point out rattlesnakes coiled under rocks. —Rubén Martínez, from Desert America (Metropolitan Books, 2012)

[life-on-our-planet]

🪶💧19 Quail Chicks Drinking on a Hot Day💧🪶

[fandomsandfeminism]

This is a post complaining about the lack of feasible travel options in the US beyond car or plane.

I live near Austin, Texas. I have family near Albuquerque, New Mexico. This is about 700 miles.

This is a shitty drive in a car. About 11.5 hours (not including stops), and that slog through west Texas is rough. It's a lot of wear and tear on the car, and even in the hybrid, a lot of gas.

When we need to get there quickly, we have generally flown. Southwest has some direct flights, about 1 hour and 45 minutes, for about $175. (Plus renting a car when we get there.) But airport security sucks and is a bit of an environmental disaster. You spend more time in the airport than in the air. It's annoying, but is a decent tradeoff for time when that's important.

Riding a Greyhound bus is CHEAPER than flying (about $120 a ticket) but you are either going to Dallas, waiting for a new bus, to Amarillo, waiting for a new bus, to Abq (21 hours), or To Dallas, to Oaklahoma City, to Abq (25 hours.)

But Rosie, you might ask, why not take *the train*?

More environmentally friendly, and it can't take LONGER than driving, right? Or maybe a liiiitle if we are going to Dallas first? So it cant be longer than the BUS right? And it's a train, how fun!

This is a map of Amtraks tracks.

Suggested route 1: 30 hours

You can take a train to Ft. Worth, change to a different train to Oklahoma city, then take a bus to Kansas, THEN a train to Abq. $250 a ticket.

Suggested route 2: 54 hours

Take a train to ST LOUIS, then a BUS to Kansas City, then a different train to Abq. $300 per ticket.

And you still have to rent a car when you get there.

Listen, I know this isn't like... Amtraks fault. Amtrak has been intentionally sabotaged again and again, but holy Jesus. I *want* to ride the train. I would gladly *double* my travel time if the cost was reasonable and the route didn't involve having to switch to a bus halfway through?! But how can I justify 2 hours/$175 vs 54 hours/$300 AND A BUS TRANSFER?!

Again, not Amtraks fault directly.

[inatungulates]

Desert bighorn sheep Ovis canadensis nelsoni

Observed by blobb, CC BY-NC

[thewolfnessphotography]

Camp Creek Falls

Arizona. US

[lsleofskye]

Mojave Desert | emmett_sparling

[herpsandbirds]

Desert Iguanas (Dipsosaurus dorsalis), family Iguanidae, SW united States

photograph by Tonia

[loveisinthebat]

Tiny Tree Hugger

[snototter]

A blue death-feigning beetle, or desert ironclad beetle (Asbolus verrucosus) in California, USA

by Robyn Waayers

[arc-hus]

Desert Interpretation Centre, Antofagasta, Chile - Emilio Marín & Juan Carlos López

[spiritofthebackroads]

[mother-lee]

“Scenes of the American Midwest Through The Eyes of The Youth.” Carolyn Bouso. 2015.

[muttball]

Gold in the Desert?

[crumb]

Elko, Nevada (2007)

[docileeffects]

[sitting-on-me-bum]

The lesser long-nosed bat, a crucial pollinator for desert ecosystems, is one of only three bat species in North America that feed on nectar.

PHOTOGRAPH BY TOM VEZO, MINDEN PICTURES