Desert Rain

We've been having some pretty crazy weather here for the past couple of days. Yesterday, a thunderstorm rolled through Yucca Valley and 29 Palms, but managed to miss the main portion of the base entirely. Yes, there was lightening! As I drove home, I encountered highway construction signs that said "flooded" and water running across the road 2"-3" deep. To top it off, I awoke this morning at 0430 to the sound of rain. Yes, for the first time since I arrived in late February, it has rained here in Yucca Valley! I drove to work dodging sand on the road, puddles spanning two lanes, and a dog who decided my car was a deer and jumped into my front passenger door as I drove by. Fortunately, he was standing tall and healthy after his encounter with what was decidedly not a deer.

One of the reasons I hated living in LA was the concrete covering everything. Here, everything is covered with sand. When it rains, or even when the wind blows too hard, the sand covers the road, creating a hazard for motorists. This photo was taken from my driveway and shows sand blocking a nearby road.


What this means is that the day after a rain, all the city's heavy equipment comes out.
I have NO CLUE where the sand dump is, but there's a lot of it. I don't even want to think about how much money the city spends on road maintenance. It's not just the rains, too. At least once every couple of weeks I come home to find water running down the street (taking sand with it, of course) and a utilities truck putting out signs on the road so they can repair the latest damage. The quickest way to get down to Palm Springs is not infrequently closed off because high winds blow sand across the road.

The desert is an inhospitable place. I was marveling over this National Geographic special a few days ago, showing animals battling it out over the last few drops of water in a pond:

We're not quite that bad here in southeastern California, but it takes a lot of work to live in the desert.