The Worst That Could Happen

I've lost every man I've ever loved.

The first two were, are, and always will be unsuitable partners, and by their own actions broke the love I once gave them. The first revealed his true self to me relatively quickly and devastatingly painfully. The truth of the second took 13 years to set in, which it still hasn't completely.

And now, the third and final man I have ever loved romantically is about to get married to someone else.

I don't know when, but I know that he's getting married.

I knew this was happen.

I was waiting for this.

I was looking for the signs.

I was trying to prepare myself.

When I first realized he was no longer mine, I waited for his other relationship to end, and for him to come back to me. When it became clear that that was not going to happen, I considered the possibility of him marrying this other girl, and upon such thought, became so distraught, I imagined myself driving over the side of Angeles Crest Highway and plummeting in a fiery blaze. 

Perhaps coming to my senses, I thought I'd rather wait forever than die over lost love, so I instead planned to just keep waiting. Even if they got married, I would still wait. "She has to die eventually..." I thought. And surely I would still be available when the time came that he too became available again.

That was when he and I were still friends, when I could still see him, when every conversation and interaction made me fall in love with him more deeply. In fact, I didn't even love him when we were together. I only started loving him when I really got to know him — as friends — when I wasn't allowed to touch him.

My friends warned me to stay away from him. They urged that the only way I could move on with my life —and that he could move on with his — was for me to stay away from him.

And then, he was the one to tell me to stay away.

That was two years ago.

He never came back to me. 

He never even tried.

I waited and wondered, because it wasn't over, it was never over, but nothing.

And now...

I hear he's getting married.

They say he's getting married.

As for me, I'll never get married, but it's not because I don't want to. I've always wanted to. But it's just not happening for me. 

And I can't make it happen. I've tried. I can't conjure, coordinate, coagulate, coalesce or correspond in the right way to make the stars align, the synapses fire, the pheromones click, the juices flow.

Leading up to this point, this precise future, these incipient nuptials, there were many things that could've happened. 

But this...

...this is the worst.

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My Time Has Passed

Photo Essay: Antelope Valley Indian Museum, Built into a Butte

Southern California is full of stories about people who found a way to live here despite obstacles of weather, water, and terrain: settlers who built homesteads in the middle of the desert and managed to eke out a bit of agriculture from arid land; ranchers who discovered oil, or silver, gold, and granite; mid-century modern masterpieces cantilevered over cliffs in the Hollywood Hills.



Howard Arden Edwards — a theatrical set painter and artist — got 160 acres of land in the Antelope Valley in 1928 thanks to the Homestead Act...



...and built a home for himself and his wife and teenage son...



...into the side of a natural rock formation, known as Piute Butte.



The Tudor-style home (listed on the National Register of Historic Places) is so integrated with the butte...



...that the rear part of the house is literally inside the rock.



As you walk upstairs into the area which now houses Edwards' personal collection of Native American artifacts...



...which he once used as his own museum while he lived in the house...



...you're literally rock-climbing.



It's a slippery, wobbly climb up there...



...but worth it to see the marvel of the house's construction...



...and examples of Edwards' interior design handiwork...



...including some of his painted ceilings. (There are more downstairs as well.)



Outside, there's a nature trail that allows you to explore the surrounding natural area...



...much of which is now operated as a state park.

The wildflowers were blooming, a little (though not as much as at nearby Saddleback Butte State Park).



An old barn and corral, built by Edwards in 1932, are still visible and standing...



...though the museum's subsequent owner, Grace Oliver, moved them from east of the museum to northwest of it.











There are unusual granite rock formations behind the current museum which are also part of Piute Butte...



...once an area of spiritual significance for the various American Indian groups which once populated it.





Some pictographs were once painted on these rocks, but they have severely faded and eroded over time.



A natural amphitheater in the rock formation was used by Edwards to stage annual outdoor pageants, creating a tourist attraction known as the "Theater of the Standing Rocks."



In this record-breaking year of drought, in a season which should be green and flowering but which is too much of a dead, dry brown too early in the year, the arid land is no longer relieved or reprieved by natural springs, which have now run dry. If it doesn't rain, there is no water. There is not enough snow to melt and run down the mountain. With development encroaching on the now barren but once plentiful Antelope Valley,  there are more people needing more water for their showers and dishes and laundry and lawns and gardens and car washes, not to mention for drinking.

There are fewer wide open spaces in Southern California, but they're still out there. The climate and the topography make it difficult to survive in most non-urbanized places, but wouldn't you love to just pick a beautiful spot in the middle of nowhere and just decide to live there?

This is still the Southern California dream, a dream that's still possible, but who knows for how long.

EVENT: Books & Brews with Obscura Society LA

Join me on my next event as Field Agent for Atlas Obscura, in which we explore the two best things to come out of the industrial revolution: printing and beer brewing!

OBSCURA SOCIETY LA: BOOKS & BREWS

Before all of your books were on a Kindle, before all your news came from the internet, before magazines just went to your inbox, the art of printing was essential to the spread of information. 

At the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the mechanization of printing presses (letterpress, linotype, etc.) brought literature and news widely to the general public, allowing literacy to be not just for the elite. 

The International Printing Museum in Carson, CA - just 20 minutes south of Downtown Los Angeles - allows visitors to step back in time and view one of the world's largest collections of antique printing machinery in the world, some so rare and unique that Hollywood has come calling for use in period piece films and TV shows. 

On Saturday, April 12th, the Los Angeles Obscura Society will explore the world of books from the early stages of papermaking to lithography and typesetting, with an private guided tour of the museum and a hands-on demonstration customized exclusively for us.

Afterwards, we will visit a nearby taproom of a local LA craft brewery to learn the brewmaster's story of growing a beer business from homebrewing (a process which exploded in popularity when brewing equipment became more easily accessible) to owning his own commercial beer operation. 

There, we'll taste some inspired concoctions of "weird beer" like the award-winning Groundwork Coffee Porter and the Sabre-Tooth Squirrel, a hoppy ale inspired by a not-so-mythic ancient beast. Since they offer a wide variety of experimental beers that aren't available elsewhere out in the market, we'll be wetting our whistles in typical Atlas Obscura fashion. 

Notes for this adventure:
- This is a 3-hour event at two separate locations and will be led by Sandi Hemmerlein (me!).
- The second location is a quick two mile drive from the first location. Please plan on providing your own transportation or carpool there.
-Your ticket includes admission to the museum, guided tour, printing demonstration/workshop, and a beer tasting at the tap room!
- Be prepared to stand and walk for at least one hour during the museum tour
- Casual attire recommended - for the hands-on portion, dealing with ink and other potential messy material.
- Taproom is all ages, but you must be at least 21 years old with ID to drink beer. There is no food at the taproom but you can bring your own!

Buy Tickets Here

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Photo Essay: Golden Road Brewing Tour
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Photo Essay: Llano Del Rio Company Colony, Abandoned

When driving east down Pearblossom Highway — which takes you through the Antelope Valley on your way to Victorville, one of the secret ways to Vegas from LA — you encounter a whole lot of nothing for a while, and then a sign for the town of Llano, population just over 1100. 

If you're not looking for it, you might miss the cobbled granite ruins of the former colony of Llano Del Rio.

Photo Essay: An Explosion of Wildflowers in the Antelope Valley

In my three years since moving to Southern California, I keep hearing about wildflower explosions, but I hadn't really seen much. I'd traveled to Anza-Borrego specifically to witness the flowery blanket I'd read about, and was disappointed. There haven't been any poppies at the Preserve to speak of. Tejon Ranch blossomed last year, but the buds disappeared nearly as quickly as they sprouted.

Knowing how capricious the seasons can be - one year too wet, the next two years too dry, then a sudden downpour - you can never totally discount wildflower season this early in the game. Until it gets too hot, there's always a chance that the hillsides color palette will be something other than brown.

Case in point: on Friday, a photo of Saddleback Butte State Park was posted online, showing a yellow blanket of wildflowers. Now, sometimes when that happens, a keen photographer will get just the right shot to make it look like the flowers stretch for miles, when in reality, it's just a small patch.

Having no other plans on Saturday, I set out on the drive north to the Antelope Valley to see for myself.

For my first visit ever to Saddleback Butte,  I was not disappointed.

Formerly known as Joshua Tree State Park because of its dense population of Joshua trees - a tree that only grows in the Mojave Desert - Saddleback Butte starts off modestly at the ranger station / visitor center by the Day Use Area.



There's an little nature trail that winds around a flat basin, partially paved for a wheelchair or a stroller or just anybody looking for an easy walk.



The wildflowers here are few and far between.



Pretty, but isolated, and delicate.



Setting off on the Little Butte Trail...



...I started to see the first signs of yellow - real yellow, not just individual fledglings.



What appeared from the distance to be a yellowish green grass was actually a densifying population of at least three different varieties of yellow wildflowers, the fiddlenecks in particular with their tall, green, curved stems.



And then it became tremendous.



I'm not going to show you one photo. I'm going to show dozens of areas completely covered in a springtime spectacular of yellow...

...in stark contrast to the green and brown of the Joshua trees rising above...



...and the deep blue sky.











The yellow was interrupted by an occasional white...





...and one outcropping of pink...



...and even a small patch of sumac...



...but, except for the clearing in the sandy trail, you just could not get away from the yellow blanket...





...all the way up to the Little Butte itself.



Taking a moment to glance behind me back at the Little Butte Trail...



...I then summited the butte...



...looking down at the verdure...



...before proceeding towards the Saddleback Trail.



I could've gone all the way to Saddleback Peak, which wouldn't have added that much distance to my hike, but I was in a rush, and daunted by the drastic elevation change (on rocky terrain) in just two miles.



Instead, I decided to skip it and stay amongst the Joshua trees, making a loop back to the Day Use Area where I'd parked.



This stretch of the trail was really incredible: less traveled, the lack of constant foot traffic allowed the path to shrink and the flowers to creep.



With snow-capped mountains in the distance...



...and more buttes not so far away...



...you could see an even starker contrast here between winter and spring...



...where, in certain areas, spring was most definitely taking over.









The Saddleback Trail continued to get sandier and even less traveled, the windblown sand appearing rippled, like drifting dunes.



I was reticent to disturb it, but I had to make my way back to my car through the campground, by which point the flowers had pretty much disappeared.

Many times during my hike, I found myself smiling widely, a smile that normally overtakes my face only when I'm biking. It's amazing what an injection of spring can do.

Typically, flowers like this may not peak until mid-March, but I can't imagine the wildflower blanket at Saddleback Butte State Park intensifying much more beyond this weekend.

I'm glad I could get there as soon as I did.

It would have been a shame to miss it.

Related Post:
Photo Essay: The Wildflower Blanket at Tejon Ranch