Weekend trip with friends to a Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) installation at Owens Lake east of the Sierra mountains in California. There were many strange dust mitigation efforts being attempted by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), some indistinguishable from land art, and some indistinguishable from Sisyphean self-flagelation.
Drove through blooming "Amond" (almond) groves in the Central Valley. Didn't get photos of Mercey Hot Springs, where we stayed the first night, but the hills there (west of Central Valley) were very beautiful. Roughly east of Monterey Bay... the Hamilton Range? Drove through Kern Valley (Rt 178) both ways.
After Owens Lake we drove further east on 190 through Panamint Valley into Death Valley National Park, to the Mesquite Flat sand dunes. On the return we went south through Trona and Searles Valley, a late-stage mining town full of despair and sulphur fumes. Hit a wonderful unmarked hot spring then drove on home, passing blinking red wind turbines late in the night.
Songs: "Cecilia" by Simon and Garfunkel, "California" by Phantom Planet
Audio Books: "Cadillac Desert" by Marc Reisner, "Assembling California" by John McPhee
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