Shapes

Our hotel in Joshua Tree is on the decline, and is in the process of being sold, probably at a loss. The concierge mentioned that she’s heading off to Montana in search of something better, which tells you a lot.

The décor is sad and tired, with some fittings clearly not having been renovated since the 1980s. After the gracious breakfast out on the patio at Palm Springs, with two burbling fountains within earshot, this hotel offered breakfast in a dingy room with a wall-mounted TV blaring infomercials (at least until I found the remote and muted it, without any complaints from other guests). It was a depressing spread designed for longevity rather than taste or nutrition. Goodbye to Palm Spring’s fresh waffle bar; hello to Joshua Tree’s instant coffee machine. Ugh.

But once we were back out on the road heading into the national park, we couldn’t help but feel better.

We started with The Halls of Horror, a rock field is primarily intended for climbers, but there are opportunities even for idiots like me who are there in $200 Paul Smith jeans. It’s called the Halls of Horror because there are numerous narrow passages between the boulders through which one can squeeze, if one’s physique and claustrophobia will allow.

Later, we visited Skull rock, which is, as the name suggests, a rock shaped vaguely, from certain angles, like a skull.

Arch Rock is an attraction within a vast field of stone sculpted by the elements into unearthly, organic shapes. Due to the arid conditions and the gravelly soil, there aren’t many weeds growing between the stones, so the whole landscape looks a little like a movie set rather than a natural environment. I’m sure there are complex scientific reasons why these particular rocks were carved into such evocative shapes, but you don’t need to know what they are to appreciate the eerie beauty.

As evening closed in we headed back to the city. On the return journey to Los Angeles I had the idea to play recordings from YouTube of some of the radio stations from Grand Theft Auto 5. If you haven’t played GTA5, it’s set in an alternate Los Angeles called Los Santos, and there are a dozen different radio stations you can listen to in the game, including groove and soul with DJ Pam Grier (The Lowdown 91.1), and pop classics with DJ Cara Delevingne (Non-Stop Pop100.7). It proved to be an amazing soundtrack for the drive – I made a video out the window as we sped along the freeway with the smoggy sprawl of LA in the distance to Marlena Shaw's 1969 hit ‘California Soul’ – but unfortunately it reset my brain, and now I can’t help but see Los Angeles as Los Santos. Especially as the drivers on the LA freeways are just as aggressive and chaotic as you are in the game.