29 Palms J. M. Strother The red gray dust billowed in a long expanding cloud behind us as we drove down the hard pack road. To the right the flat expanse of desert rolled on, seemingly forever, broken here and there by squat gnarled trees, ancient tumbled stones, and spotty clumps of bleached grass, brown scrub, and cacti. Godforsaken was an apt description. It amazed me that anyone had ever crossed this land in wagons over a century before, and lived to tell about it. More amazing still, others ranged this barren land long before the wagons rolled, and called it home. To the left a long range of broken peaks, not really tall enough to be called mountains, at least to my mind, rose up steeply from the desert floor. Remnants from an age that predated even the nomadic natives of this land, the result of two great tectonic plates colliding, thrusting the very earth skyward. A mix of basalt black and sandstone reds, the colors contrasted sharply in the bright midday sun. And in stark contrast to both red and black, deep green shocks lie scattered along the length of the rift, where fault lines deep underground intersect deeply buried aquifers, allowing life giving waters to seep up to see the sun. Oases. I had never seen an oasis, except in movies. Now we trekked this barren land to see one first hand. I was not impressed. They still lay off some distance, seemingly insignificant mounds of green, dwarfed by the rugged steep cliffs just beyond. Some boulders lay scattered along the cliff side too, randomly arrayed. Some of these rocks were bigger than the mounds of green, making the mounds seem all the more unimpressive. We slowed as we approached the T intersection and the dust cloud began to overtake us. There was a sign, once stained deep brown with bright yellow lettering. Now the colors were so faded that it was hard to tell them apart. It simply read, Twentynine Palms. So what do you think? Dave asked as he turned on the left blinker. We came this far, I shrugged. Might as well see what it's like. I've never been to an oasis. It'll be fun, Buz put in from the back seat. Buz could find something fun in almost anything. Dave turned onto the access road. The access road proved longer than it had appeared. The desert does that, dwarfs things in its vast expanse. As we approached the parking lot we noticed the trailer to one side. Torn screens, storm door ajar, curtains leached of all color. The finish was so blistered and faded by the sun that we could not tell what the original color had been, or perhaps it had been bare aluminum from the start. Storage unit? Caretaker's house? Or just an abandoned tailer? We could not tell. Dave pulled to a stop in the chat parking lot and waited till most of the dust cloud drifted past before he shut off the engine, thus killing our air conditioning. The car immediately began to heat up, so we piled out. Surprisingly, the heat was not overbearing. The humidity was low and there was a constant moderating breeze. Soon all remnants of our dust cloud were gone. The oasis looked a little bigger now, and did not shoot straight up from the desert floor without transition, as had appeared from the main road. From here we could see that it was surrounded by grasses which got progressively taller towards the trees. Near the parking lot where we stood the grass grew in spotty clumps, bleached blond by sun and wind, and was little more than ankle high. Broad bare reddish patches of soil made natural pathways that wend hither and yon. As we walked these natural paths they grew narrower and the grasses taller as we approached the trees. Soon the grass filled in all about us, fully chest high. We walked cautiously, yet noisily, to scare off any lurking snakes. We broke through the grasses in a sudden burst and found ourselves standing under the eaves of looming palms. What we had taken as insignificant trees from the road were tall and magnificent specimens, as tall as many hardwood species to be found back in Missouri, with trunks of comparable girth. Only then did we realize the size of the rocks we had seen scattered near the base of the uplift, rocks that had made these oases seem small in comparison. This realization in turn put the mountains, that I had just moments ago thought to be too low to be proper mountains, into perspective. The desert is an amazing place. Again, broad natural pathways opened up before us, cutting in and out among the shaggy palm trunks. We took a few steps into the oasis and the atmosphere changed around us. The temperature must have dropped 20 degrees, the air no longer felt hot and dry, but cool and moist, and carried a pleasant loamy smell on its gentle breezes. Life teamed around and above. The voices of hundreds of birds twittered; bright feathered birds streaked from tree to tree or from tree to ground, landing just feet away from us, completely unconcerned at our intrusion. Duller brown birds sat in small clusters here and there, some chittering - arguing among themselves, others boldly singing quick cheerful songs trying to attract a mate. We went deeper into the oasis and our whole world began to take on a luminous green tint, as the living dome above us filtered the sunlight. The ground was soft, yet firm, the paths worn smooth by many passing feet. I realized that these paths, while widened and smoothed by many tourists like myself, were ancient too; originally animal traces formed by the constant need for water. We walked in silent awe of this place, drifting together and apart, each lost in our own thoughts. The overall shape of the oasis was circular, dipping down towards the center, where the foliage grew very thick indeed. Buz and I headed down a run, what started out as a well worn path, presuming to find a tranquil central pool at its end. The path did not cooperate, quickly closed in to dense underbrush, and then completely disappeared. Again the temperature as noticeably cooler, and the ground beneath our feet began to get springy, if not a little soggy. We both stopped at about the same instant, hesitant to go on. Do you think there could be any quicksand around here? I asked. I don't know. We just did not know, about quicksand, about snakes, about anything to do with this alien environment. It was like another world. We could hear small animals scurrying around in the underbrush, just a few feet from where we stood. Buz's ankles, fully exposed since he was wearing shorts, looked very vulnerable. Discretion proved the better part of valor and we retraced our steps back to the rim of the depression to continue exploring safer grounds. We found Dave sitting on a mound just outside the canopy, but still in the shade of the trees, with a look of shear contentment on his face. Curious, we wandered over to where he sat and found a sharp drop off formed by a series of sinkholes, all in a row. A tiny stream ran at the bottom, connecting them all. Water bubbled from one pool down to the next, disappearing at the end of the last sink, just as it had appeared up above. Lush green grasses grew on either bank. I just saw a frog, Dave said with a wry smile. The stream below was only inches wide, broadening now and then into pools no more than my shoulder's width. Tiny silver fish swam in the pools, lazily drifting with the current until a sudden spurt of energy took them back to their starting positions. How the heck do fish end up way out here? I mused. I'll bet there are mountain lions, Dave speculated, At dusk. And dawn. Maybe deer. I gazed about, across the blond grasses and open scrub to the broken uplift beyond. Behind me stood tall palm trees, bearded in long dead fonds which nested hosts of birds. Beyond the palms yellowed grasses, and then sage brush and saguaro as far as the eye could see. We sat down beside Dave in reverent silence, three souls who had found a deep inner peace in the middle of a desert, a desert teaming with life.

 
~jon
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