In my beloved Twentynine Palms, I stepped gingerly onto Trump’s territory. The new National Park Service visitor center is downtown. The good news is the first words you see inside on the wall are about sustainability and preserving our national heritage for future generations. The bad news is that it’s a quote from Joe Biden’s secretary of the Interior.
A park service employee welcomed me warmly. I wanted to ask him how things were going. But in a visit earlier this year to another federal installation, I learned that some career employees who have DOGE’d cutbacks and buyouts don’t really want to talk about Trump.
I hope he doesn’t plan a desert retreat soon. He might not like what he sees. The permanent exhibit retains a land acknowledgement and a focus on indigenous peoples. That may be hard to change if some of the wealthier local nations helped pay for the exhibit. Most of their casinos are doing better than Trump’s. Outside, the weekly farmer’s market was underway, with an all-American diversity of food and clientele. Like a greasewood bush clinging to a wall of solid granite, Joshua Tree’s high desert authenticity is hanging on stubbornly.
While in the park, I made my annual pilgrimage to the spot where singer and songwriter Gram Parson’s friends attempted to immolate his body after his death in a nearby hotel in 1973. Fifteen years ago, it was common to see tributes written on the rock. The Park Service got in the habit of air-blasting them. It also may be that Boomer fans are not visiting as often. But the Burrito Brother’s spirit was flying high today. Someone who had just been there had traced his initials in the sand, along with the shimmering cross from the back of his Nudie suit.
Driving north from Parker, I stayed on the California side of the Colorado River, where you have to keep an eye out for wild burros. Below the dam, jet skiers rang rings around my worries. Viewed from above the 93 between Kingman and Las Vegas, the Colorado drew a blue streak in the sunset.
