Homage to La Contenta
(2/15/25) What is any temporary place you live? All the more so when a week or two stretches beyond a month? The place on La Contenta on the edge of Joshua Tree National Park in the Yucca Valley rapidly became our home in the desert. We were lucky to land there a week after the fires and find our wits inside the ringing silence, big sunny windows, and 360 views of San Jacinto to the west and the park to the south and east, and the glimmer of lights along the highway to the north. We made a fast handful of local friends. And witnessed a desert snow!
Oddly, the floor plan in relation to the sun mirrored our burned down cottage on Pine. Odder still, we realized not long after arriving that we’d bumbled our incidental way to a nearby sandy sholl of the desert in mid-August, 2023, a few days after I arrived in California. We drove out to the desert to peep the Perseid meteor shower. We arrived after dark to the park nearby and found ourselves quickly underwhelmed by the glut of cars and people. So we opted to venture off the beaten asphalt path and onto a tiltawhirl network of sandy dirt roads. One road led us to a small ledge of sorts on the edge of a steep arroyo. We pulled out our rugs and slept the night here. Some coyotes keening a few hours before dawn. Before we departed California in mid-February, 2025, we walked to that place and discovered our latest ‘home’ had already been…within our view, about a half-mile away from our impromptu ‘campsite’ on the other side of the arroyo.
We stayed in the Space House (Thunderbird Lodge Retreat), thus the crashed UAP/UFO you may see littered around the house, along with homemade metalwork robots, vacant trailer, and apparent X-Files set-pieces. & other odd miscellany (a busted bowling ball?) within chucking distance. There was a certified abundance of chairs. An abandoned house nearby, as well as several occupied ones which made it all less creepy. It took us about two weeks to make the place feel homey: we rearranged the interior chairs, covered the alien-heads, aired out the place, and forgave the ghostly presence lurking in the shower.
Our thanks to Lori for having us there! We hope to return again...
