Wednesday 1st April

After stocking up on supplies at the local store, we headed west on the 164 along the top of the Mojave National Preserve. I had found a website about ghost towns, so we were going by directions from that site to find a couple that sounded interesting. We took the Ivanpah road south into the preserve, to a ghost town called Goldome. When we got there, we found a gate with a sign saying “No Trespassing”, and beyond it were some industrial buildings that looked like they wouldn’t have been built more than 50 years ago. There were supposed to be some older buildings further up a dirt road, but the road was so bad that we decided just to head for the next town. We went deeper into the preserve in search of Death Valley Mine, south of Cima. We had to go quite far down a dirt road to get to it, but we were well rewarded when we got there. There were a few buildings still standing, some residential, some workshops, and some mining equipment and filled-in mine entrances. It was a very eerie place, especially when we were exploring inside the buildings. We weren’t entirely sure if there might still be someone about there, but the buildings were bare and we didn’t encounter anyone. We found a lot of junk (plus electrical sockets) that suggested people had been living there not too long ago, and we found a newspaper dated July 8 1984, my fourth birthday.
We then drove further south into the preserve to see the Kelso dunes, I was pleased about this seeing as we missed the dunes in Death Valley a few days before. The dunes were very impressive, sloping hundreds of feet upwards. We walked quite far up them although not all the way to the top, as it was tough going and the sand was blowing around pretty fiercely the higher we got. We just about managed to hear the strange sound that causes them to be described as “singing dunes”, a low tone generated by sand being blown down the dunes by the wind creating friction with the static sand. The day was drawing on so we decided to head straight for San Diego. We took the I-40 west to join with the I-15 that skirted LA and took us straight down to San Diego. We went with a Lonely Planet recommendation and checked into the 500 West hotel which was fairly centrally positioned, a converted YMCA.
We had a wander into the Gaslamp district where all the bars seemed to be, and we found a Rock Bottom, the same chain that we had been to in Portland. Each one has a different brewmaster, so we were able to try some beers that were different to the one in Portland, and the ones here were considerably better. I had some enchiladas and enjoyed the return of the fabulous Triple Chocolate Stout cheesecake. We had a beer in another bar called The Bitter End, and then decided to head to one of the bars that Bradley from San Francisco had recommended to us, the Turf Club. It was quite a way away so we got a cab there, but it was worth it, a nice cosy bar that was less trendy than the places in the Gaslamp District. We met a guy called Dan who operates one of the bicycle taxis, and he told us a bit about San Diego, and recommended that we go to Ocean Beach tomorrow. Another late night but good fun, San Diego seemed to be another friendly and very manageable city and already we thought it was a shame that we were only going to be here for a very short time.