Did I visit the Sahara Desert recently? No, just the Cadiz Dunes Wilderness near sunset, right here in Southern California. It's out in the middle of the Mojave Desert, sort of between Barstow and Needles.
I was there to see if it would be a good place for astrophotography and Milky Way pictures, which it turned out not to be. Partly this is because the dunes themselves aren't all that accessible and partly because the drive out there was considerably more of an adventure than I had counted on. More about that later.
My mother told me of driving across the dunes on the old plank road. A trip she and my dad made from Alabama to California in the 1920's.
1) Wonderful photo.
2) "...sort of between Barstow and Needles." Very reminiscent of another bit of geographical specification:
"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. "
-- opening sentence of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
this looks very much like a color version of an Ansel Adams photo. I wonder if it is from the same general area
So, assuming the shortest round-trip distance to/from the entrance, that is 410 miles round trip. 12.5 gallons of gasoline assuming the 33 mpg highway for the Forrester. 111 kg/238 lb of CO2 to satisfy an amateur astrophotographers’ curiosity.
Nice photo.