We left Lake Havasu City in the morning, heading on over to Menifee, CA. Menifee, where in the world is that? Well, I’m thinking it’s a suburb of Los Angeles - but about 90 miles away. There might be some living here who actually work in LA but I can’t imagine that there are many. It’s a long drive - we’ve done it several times but only when we have a goal in mind. We were there for 7 days before we moved on.
We took a 2-lane road through the desert, through some mountain ranges and down some canyons. It’s a beautiful drive if you like the desert and we do. There’s a stark beauty in the openness surrounded by the jagged edges of the mountains. It’s an unforgiving territory. Having lived in Iowa and New Hampshire for most of my life, I’ve been surrounded by trees. I remember being out in our ‘yard’ in New Hampshire, where we had a wooded acre, and hearing a strange whooshing sound coming from the sky. We looked up through the circle of trees around our home and, sure enough, a balloon appeared over the edge of trees, flew over our small circle and disappeared behind the opposite edge of trees. Did I like the wooded forests? Did I like our wooded lot? You bet. I didn’t know much else.
Do I now appreciate the open spaces of the deserts? Do I appreciate the jagged ridges on the horizon? Absolutely? In fact, I wonder what it will be like when we travel north from San Francisco through the redwoods, the woods of the Oregon coast and into the rainforest area of Washington. Will I feel closed in? Will I long for the openness of the deserts? Time will tell.
See what I mean about the openness? Here’s our road towards 29 Palms, a town north of Palm Springs. And, by the way, that biker just pedaled up it.
After the loneliness of the our desert drive, we then drove down the canyon on the other side of the mountain range into the hustle and bustle of the Interstate 10 pass between the San Jacintos and the Gorgonios. Gas stations, outlet malls, casinos, restaurants - what a contrast from the solitude of the desert we had just traveled through.
Our first day in the park we took to do mundane things like laundry and shopping. We had limited hook-ups in Lake Havasu City and were so busy that some things just went by the side.
It’s amazing how many people have their own networks. I can see them all on our computer, most with pretty tame names: Fred&Ethel Mifi, Aspen, Verizon-890L, but then there are some other names: BigQuack was one of my favorites until I saw ‘Virginia’s Hot Spot’. Now, BigQuack is ok but I’d probably change ‘Virginia’s Hot Spot’ to something a bit tamer.
The next day we ventured out. We’ve been driving through this area at various times over several years and have always passed by what looks like a large air field and museum. We’ve always said that the next time we’ll stop. And, today is that next time. There was a plethora of aircraft, both inside and outside the museum. I’ve seen planes that I’ve read about for years in history books and used for teaching high school American History. It’s such a thrill to see some of these since I’ve read about them for so long. Here they had the B-17, the B- 29 and the B-52. Planes I’ve read about for years so it was great to see the actual planes.
Notice that the wings also have wheels on them to help the plane land. This is a big plane.
A plethora of airplanes but not much explanation in the actual museum. They had a bulletin board with pictures of the Tuskegee Airmen training. But no explanation about who they were, why they were important, why they are being pictured here in March Field, and why I should care about them. In another case, they had set up a WWI trench exhibit and included a periscope for you to look through. In the periscope, I saw a tiny screen with people talking about trench warfare. Could I see them very well? Could I hear them? No to both questions. Great idea but poor execution. I think that they should have had a sight in the periscope that I might have actually seen in WWI: barbed wire, more trenches, holes from exploded bombs, German’s coming at me, etc.
And the entire museum was like this: display after display with no explanation about why they even had this display here. When they did have any explanation they put it on 8”x11” typewritten pages on the wall for you to read. Trouble is: they kept us about 5’ from the wall - who can read an 8” x 11’ typewritten page from 5’ away? Needless to say, I was terribly frustrated. I love a good museum and this museum had the makings for a good one but they wasted the opportunity.
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