Sunday was an adventure day, with my desert guide, Doug, and his drone, taking three of us on a trip east of Victorville to Soggy Dry Lake. Along the way, we tried to see just how much desert off-roading our Subarus could do (mine an Outback, his a lighter Crosstrek Hybrid).
Our first stop made for a good Subaru photo op of my car, although I have to confess that is as far up the sandy road as it would go. Still, makes a good photo!
It was a perfect day to be out in the high desert, clear and slightly chilly but not a drop of rain in sight (despite the storm that rolled in later overnight).
Our next stop was the road to Green Mine, which is that greenish area below the mountain peak. The road was impassable even to Doug’s intrepid Subie, so he sent the drone in for a closer look. The rest of the road was even worse than the initial “rock so big we can’t drive over it or drive around it” part!
While we were there, we had a little fun with shadows. Two of us had more fun than the others 🙂
This is the first time I’ve seen a high-end drone in action and it was pretty fun. We got great views, and Doug took some really awesome videos of the old bombing range.
He even used the drone to find the center, and, yep, we found some bomb remnants right there. Someone had great aim back in the day.
Doug likes to take the scenic route to a destination, so we finally made it to Soggy Dry Lake just before sunset. Surprisingly, it was not dry, despite all the “we’re having a drought in SoCal” news. Here is a link to Doug’s video of the drone flying over the dry lake and one of the drone flying around it.
The lake edges were dry, and I really liked this closeup photo I took just at sunset.
I’m not sure exactly where we were, but it was definitely a bunch of cool stops ending with a beautiful sunset and then an impromptu dinner (after 10 minutes of waiting to be seated in a nearly empty restaurant, we got our day’s leftovers out of the cars and had a nice little picnic outside on their patio!).
This day trip definitely has whetted my appetite for a week or so in Joshua Tree later this month. The desert definitely has a different beauty than my beloved beach, but intoxicating in its own way.
(Full-sized images are available in this smugmug album for free download.)
Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.
Confucius
A lot of action for one day! I just told a friend that I miss the desert landscape already even though I only left it 3 weeks ago. Your beautiful pictures just confirmed that for me!
I am missing it too now, had enough of ocean to keep me for a while. On to deserts and Big Bend and New Mexico!