Somewhere west of Death Valley, there is a town called Darwin, a paradise lost, a dream frozen. I chanced on it as the sun was setting over the Inyo Mountains. I had a choice: to go straight and hit Lone Pine through the descending fog, or take a left and drive toward Darwin along the cracked and forgotten asphalt road. I turned left.
Although I had spent the day skidding across Badwater and waking a glorious plume of off-road dust along remote and desolate switchbacks and valley crosses, the road leading to Darwin gave me a strange sense of foreboding. I idled the Jeep at the entrance of the road and looked straight ahead for quite a while!the road rose toward a pass flanked on both sides by a sparse growth of Joshua Trees. Beyond the pass, the path dipped steeply and gave way to a vista overlooking an expansive valley. In the distance amid the last remaining glow of the day’s light something glistened, and my feeble mind interpreted it as a welcoming electrical light, perhaps a 7-11, flickering in the wind!and so I continued onward.
But all along, as I drove across the vast and misleading scale of this desert road toward the flicker of light, now no longer visible, not a single car passed, followed or otherwise gave solace to my sinking heart.
Half an hour later, I arrived in town. Strewn shanties and shacks, bleached and baked and sandblasted by decades of abandon and desert wind and unremitting sun, greeted me like ghosts surrounding mortal flesh. Although the town was deep in the shadow and buried in twilight cool, not a single light glowed, nor a soul stirred. My breath gave way to a gasp.
But lo! There were cars parked along the streets, surely!and this gave me hope! But yet again, as all delusions go, the mirage reaffirmed its brutality and on further inspection, it became apparent that the cars were abandoned as well, tires missing, engines rusted, windows shattered, all left there as carcasses of dead-end journeys!
Well, what followed, I will spare you!but it was nothing short of a miracle!
- I.A.T.
