Thoughts Back on Twentynine Palms

Saturday May 12th:
Just a moment to step back and mention a couple of things that we observed in the Twentynine Palms/Joshua Tree NP area. This area is, of course a desert region, comprising the Mojave desert and the Colorado Desert areas. As we drove around we noticed that the older houses, usually only 3-4 rooms in size had a rather large water tank braced and mounted on top of the pitch of the roofs. I first thought that it was to catch rainwater, but one of the park rangers explained that the houses had shallow wells and that the water was pumped, sometimes by hand, from the well up to the tank on the roof to provide a reserve as well as provide running water inside the house. Also even the modern day houses had a LARGE air conditioning unit mounted up on the roof of the house. We almost never saw one down on the ground like at home. I guess that this got the A/C up so that the sand/dirt would not block the vents. All of the yards were surrounded by either a low wall or a mesh fence to keep out rolling brush or trash. The yards themselves were invariably only sand with Joshua trees or more usually, cactus planted for decoration. No grass that we could see exept on the Golf Courses.