road trip: anti-spa weekend

nothing out there and nothing out there

It had to be gritty, we decided. Grungy. No more than a 5-hour drive. Not your typical girls’ weekend. Blythe, Needles, Indio. All nixed for…Borrego Springs?

A place I’d never heard of until Cindy suggested it. Tucked behind Palm Springs like an afterthought. Another desert ghost town desperately trying to capture that mid-mod vibe—more vintage boutiques than people.

Cindy, my long-time partner in crime, and her pet dinosaur

A place where life-size rusted metal sculptures of pterodactyls inhabit shadeless sand dunes, radiating the heat of a million years. Motels with ashtrays outside “Fitness Rooms” and cow skulls hung on dark-panelled bedroom walls.

A place, detached and timeless, where we reconnected.

a page and sketch from my journal