Mojave National Preserve

It's about two hours' drive from Pomona to that place, which is somewhere near Baker and east of Barstow. You'd have absolutely no idea how arduous (for the car) the 4 miles of bumpy dirt road was! It was the only route to get to the desert studies center, and for me it was plain torturous. Well on normal circumstances it would've been fun, but it's just terribly wrong timing - for someone who needed to pee badly!!!! What can I say? Tough luck!

Aaaahh look! We're at the CSUC - BLM Desert Studies Center, located at the former Zzyzx Mineral Springs Resort. (CSUC = Cal. State Univ. Consortium; BLM = Bureau of Land Management) And no, the word Zzyzx is not a typo error, but a word this guy Curtis Howe Springer created in 1944, pronouncing it as /ˈzaɪˌzɪks/, as in "z-eye-ziks". Guess he must be feeling creative at that time, and now he's remembered as the guy who came up with the last word in English language! Sounds like something I'd do, maybe I'll come up with another word and make his become the second last word in English language!! heh. :P Anyway, he built and operated this Zzyzx Mineral Spring Resort illegally under mining claims and was later arrested. It was only in 1976 (2 yrs after he was arrested) that BLM allowed a consortium of CSUs to manage this land and turned it into Desert Studies Center. Cal Poly Pomona is one of them.

And that's me on the right with Leah on the left, swinging freely on a Saturday morning, basking ourselves in the California sun.
I just like the name of the streets... Castle Way and Boulevard of Dreams. :) We're in the Spring Resort now.. which were turned into dorm rooms for visitors to bunk in during the visit. Simple and nice, rooms are heated and will be air-conditioned during summer.
Ooooh... off we go on our first mission. Geo-caching. Something like treasure hunt, only we're not exactly hunting anythg... just using the GPS units to find the locations around that area.
Brian who looked like Indiana Jones with the hat, and me. :)