I could only see them as plumptious dancers, green fan hands high and modestly wrapped to to the ankles. Try un-seeing that now. Eh, you're welcome.
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| Zzyzx dancing girls |
The road into Zzyzx* winds in from the I15 south of Baker. It's not long or steep. It curves gently past grass-skirted palms, first a few at a time and solo, then abruptly as you arrive, they stand in curves and rows, outlining drives, lots, the lake shore and water.
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Sunrise Blvd meets
Blvd of Dreams |
A boat lends a nautical touch but the dry lake is a hell of powdery alkali. I followed somebody's footsteps out a way. The greyish powder clung to my feet and puffed like moondust round my calves. I turned back in the irrational fear that it would abruptly swallow me, and no
Mutt with python** to come to the rescue.
Zzyzx is pure classic California, fragments of old dreams sintered into something at once charming and a bit raggedy, a dilapidated paradise, tall palms around an artificial pond - lake, by courtesy - faded paint and the desert trying to take everything back unto itself.
The
Desert Studies Center is now housed in this old spa resort. Even so the place has an inevitable air of '
nothing beside remains' waiting to happen. But they do have occasional public weekend residential courses, so I'll hope to be back before the desert reclaims it altogether.
*Best wikipedia page name ever: Zzyzx (disambiguation)
**Don't follow that link. Honestly, pure internet quicksand with really quite a lot of air pockets.
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| Lake Tuendae, home to endangered endemic fish |
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| boat |
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| view to main building |
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| dry lake |
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| row of dancing palms |
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| dry lake surface |
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