Stories from the Road

We drove out of Indio, hit the freeway and entered the barren nothingness of the desert. It was an instant change in scenery from Indio’s oasis of palm trees, golf courses and polo fields. California’s interior is captivating and humbling in its size, emptiness and the sheer contrast to the state’s coastline.

The four of us had decided the best way to experience the US was to drive through the centre of it: LA to New Orleans. After a stopover in Indio for a music festival, we drove north-east into the desert, aiming for Lake Havasu City on the border between California and Arizona.

Slumped back in a post-festival daze and mesmerised by the scenery, it was only a couple of hours down the road—a scribble on the map—that we were hit by our first little reality check. Always fill up the tank before heading off into the desert. We’d become way too accustomed to the constant presence of gas stations that line the roads down the coastline of California, and our beast of a car was guzzling petrol.

Two slept in the back unaware of the depleting gage, while in the front we tried to Google how far away the next town was. Only 10kms: comforting, until we reached the destination to find that the ‘town’ was the boarded-up, hollow remains of a petrol station.

We drove on, passing nothing but a man trudging along the side of the road with a shopping trolley, cleaning up the cans and debris thrown from car windows.

The road swung up alongside a railway track at one point, which people had decorated with slogans and messages by writing with the coloured rocks in the track’s foundations. It was surreal to see the signatures of all those people: quotes, names and lyrics went for kilometres in bright reds and greens.

We finally reached a junction with a major highway, and a gas station, just in time. The absence of cars all morning was quickly rectified at the crowded gas station. It stood out sharply against the flat plain that stretched away towards the grey mountains of Canyon country where we were heading.

We arrived at Lake Havasu early evening. After driving all day through the desert it was a jolt to arrive in one of the state’s popular holiday destinations—billboards touted the idyllic vacation for anyone with a boat or RV. The city was the antithesis of its natural surrounds, dusty and quiet in the off-season, but still artificially dolled-up with diners and fast food joints. It screamed welcome to small town America.