MOJAVE NATIONAL RESERVE

I basically made a big figure eight, starting in Las Vegas, crossing back through and returning to leave. Note even more dead bugs on the windscreen. The washer reservoir on the Jeep must have been empty because I got nothing out of it and I couldn't figure out how to open the hood on the thing. So I had to squeegee at every gas station.
One of the dirt roads in the Mojave National Preserve. They weren't all dirt roads, but on my AAA map it indicated a ghost town ahead.
Man, that would make a great name for an album.
Way back there is my Jeep.
The name of the ghost town on the map was Vanderbilt so I couldn't resist trying to find it, but this apparently isn't it. There wasn't exactly any signage. My guess is that this was once part of some mining operation.
Big wooden circles that used to be something.
Barbed wire in the sand.
This is me trying to take photos of nature.
Pointy.
This road goes through the densest Joshua tree forest in the world. At least I think I read that somewhere along the way.
Welcome to Kelso, California. Here is the old post office.
From the mid-1940's to 1985, this two-cell strap-steel jail was used to confine drunks and other unruly individuals for a night or two. (Gee, that sounds good enough to be on an informational sign or something.) Anyway, it wasn't originally on this spot but it is now.
Kelso Depot was built in 1924 and has been preserved as a museum.
It was a station along the Union Pacific line. This is what the crew quarters used to look like.
The ticket office.
I'm prepared to go swimming because I've brought my trunks! HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!
The Kelso Dunes. Sand is blown from Soda Dry Lake, Mojave River Sink and Devil's Playground and deposited here at the base of the Granite Mountains creating dunes 700 feet high.
Something might live in there. Or maybe some pervert went all American Pie on the desert.
Little desert flowers.
I don't know what made these little tracks but I'm not afraid of whatever it is.
I'm thinking these tracks were left by a lizard or something. There are little footprints but also a slithering line that I think might be left by a tail. Or not.
Those are the Granite Mountains I mentioned earlier.

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