Day 7 — to Joshua Tree, CA

Keith and I got up at 5 a.m. again to experience the sunrise once more, then we packed up and were on the road shortly after 8. 

Sixty miles south of the Grand Canyon, we got back on I-40, but got off a short stretch later, in Seligman, for an early lunch at Delgadillo’s Snow Cap, a Route 66 drive-in that’s been around for more than six decades and is known for its kitschy decor — the yard and patio are done up with old road signs, vintage cars and Christmas decorations — as well as the staff’s playful banter with customers. John Delgadillo, the son of Juan, who opened the restaurant in 1952, offered us shot-sized cups of milkshake when we ordered small sizes, and handed out a little bundle of hay when Charlie asked for a straw. Clearly they’ve been dishing out the same schtick for years, but it was a fun stop, and the kids enjoyed it. 

From Seligman, we drove about 80 miles on Route 66 — one of the longest stretches of the old highway — to Kingman, AZ, where we got back on westbound I-40. I don’t know what I had expected, but there wasn’t much to see besides sunbaked earth and a couple of dusty towns. 

We took I-40 into California, then got off again on another stretch of Route 66 and headed toward Amboy. At one point, I stopped the car to take a picture of the highway marker painted on the road, and was struck by a stillness and silence that left my ears ringing. 

Roy's in Amboy, Calif., is a classic example of "googie" design of the 1950s.

After a couple of hours of driving through a seemingly barren wasteland, we came upon Twentynine Palms, which rises up improbably from the desert, almost 60 square miles of stoplights, banks, shiny grocery stores, and barbershops on every corner. Turns out, there’s a Marine base there — the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center. We’re told that, with a population of just over 8,000, it’s the biggest military base in the world … Can that be right? It certainly explains the existence of this city, which seems to defy nature. How can — or why would — anything survive out here on this scorched landscape?

The town of Joshua Tree is just a camel’s spit farther down the highway, and that was our destination this evening. We followed directions that had been emailed to us, finally turning off onto dirt road — essentially an uneven, pitted swath of sand that led us to Hicksville Trailer Palace.

When I was sketching out the itinerary for this trip, I had us going as far as the Grand Canyon, for sure, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to extend the drive all the way into California to Joshua Tree National Park until I found this place. Hicksville is what brought us to Joshua Tree, and it is everything I had hoped it would be.

It’s like the Black Sparrow and the Spot Tavern somehow planted themselves in the Mojave Desert, and a trailer park sprouted up from that spot. Times, like, a million.

The office doubles as a music recording studio — with a small stage set up in the corner, disco lights on the ceiling, wall-to-wall shag carpeting and oversize beanbag chairs strewn about. When we walked in the gate, the Pixies were blaring from the poolside jukebox. There’s pingpong, arcade games, mini golf, a photo booth, a fire pit, barbecue grills, a rooftop hot tub and an archery and bb-gun range where the kids can help themselves. Charlie is in 12-year-old-boy heaven.

In fact, the owner of Hicksville, Morgan Night, sounds like Paul Baldwin’s Los Angeles doppelgänger — an enigmatic creative soul with his hands in all kinds of eccentric endeavors and an affinity for assembling unusual collections. According to Jessica, the on-site manager, he recently acquired the toilet upon which Elvis Presley died.

Situated around the lot are ten themed vintage trailers. We have “The New World,” the biggest one — a hulking, 40-foot, circa-1950s trailer with a wood paneled interior — named after B-movie producer Roger Corman’s studio. The website says that this trailer doubles as a film-editing suite, but we can’t find the equipment anywhere.

The "Pee Wee" trailer is the actual gypsy wagon used in "Big Top Pee Wee."

Our trailer: The New World

Kid heaven

The Hicksville website doesn’t give directions or an address, to prevent gawkers, I suppose. Or to keep people from just dropping by and hanging out — because who wouldn’t want to hang out here? It’s freaking awesome.  Directions were emailed to us just a couple of days ago, along with a long list of rules that seem like common sense to me, and so I was kind of expecting this place to be run by a herd of rule-mongering trailer park nazis. But Hicksville is clearly where Los Angeles hipsters come to .. be hipsters, I guess. The place bills itself as an “artist retreat.” And I guess the kind of young, carefree, counter-cultury, progressively-politicking “artists” who come here need little reminders to, you know, clean up after themselves and not have sex in the hot tub.

But no worries about them. Because we basically have the place to ourselves. The only other guests are a young couple from Australia, Jessica and House, who are taking four weeks to tour the southern U.S. They joined us as we roasted hot dogs over the fire pit tonight, before the kids took off to swim in the pool, play Frogger and Ms. Pac-Man, dance to the music blasting from the patio and shoot off arrows and BBs to their little hearts’ delight. 

Like I said, this place is pretty awesome.