I am writing to you from Needles, California, which is about 40 miles away from the Mojave National Reserve -- today's destination.
I spent the first day of the trip @ Joshua Tree and then travelled the loneliest stretch of road I can ever remember -- from Twentynine Palms to Needles.
For a 90 mile stretch, there were no gas stations or restaurants ... hardly any signs of life. I went through a town called Amboy, which consists of one general store and a post office. And I could've swore that I passed a sign for a town called Essex, which has a population of 108.
Oh no, Wikipedia confirmed it (well, it's Wikipedia ... at least 50% of the info is correct)! And that population sign is being generous ...
With an estimated population of just 89 people in 2005 (down from 111 in 2000), Essex is on the verge of becoming one of many ghost towns scattered throughout the Southwest United States displaced by the creation of Interstate 40. Essex Elementary school (founded 1937), which once served the educational needs of both Essex and its neighbor Goffs, currently has only 4 pupils enrolled, taught by a single teacher. Its
location remote even with today's technological capabilities, Essex lacks many comforts of modern day life; residents were unable to receive television service until the end of 1977.
Many of the homes and buildings in Essex have completely disappeared, almost 50 lie in abandonment, and of what was once a bustling roadside hub, only the singly-employed post office, Caltrans maintenance yard, school house, and outdoor telephone are still operational.
Essex has only one close neighbor, the equally abandoned Goffs, located to the north, just across I-40.
So that was my Sunday night ... I felt like I was in a Twilight Zone episode and Earth had been abandoned. No radio signals, no house lights. I'm so accustomed to the blizzard of audio-visual distractions accompanying city life ... it was almost nice to be in the middle of nowhere, staring up at the stars (with zero light pollution).
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