Desert Road Trip - Day 5 - Taking the Long Way Home

We finished up the conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday night, and I started for home on Thursday morning. The plan was to take at least 2 days, and avoid the Interstate highways completely. (I live just east of I-15, so all I really had to do was get on the freeway and drive for 320 miles, but that sounded boring.) When I left Las Vegas I had a rough idea of where I would spend Thursday night (29 Palms or Joshua Tree), but since I had the Xterra packed with the usual 3-day supply of provisions and gear, it really didn't matter where I wound up.


I followed surface streets across the southern portion of the city until I hit US 95, and followed that south through Searchlight until I hit Goffs Road, a little 2-lane road that was once part of old US Route 66.


There is a dry lakebed just south of Las Vegas on US 95. It's not so dry right now.

Old US Route 66 followed the rail line for much of its way. Not long after I turned on to Goffs Road this freight train came rolling by.

Other than the town of Goffs (pop. 23) there is not much on Goffs Road these days.

A few minutes later another train came by.

There looks to be a nice little museum in Goffs, but it was closed.

From Goffs I continued west on Old Route 66 until I got to Amboy, where I turned south towards 29 Palms.

This was the view looking north once I got to the bottom of the hill in the shot above.

Bristol Dry Lake straddles the road south from Amboy. It had rained recently and the shoulder looked really soft, so I didn't stop for a picture. There is a large salt evaporation complex here.

I drove up into Joshua Tree National Park just as the sun was setting. It was pretty cold at the Indian Cove campground, so I decided I would be much more comfortable camped at the Fairfield Suites in 29 Palms.

Click here for more images from the road.