Postcards from the Mojave Desert

On our trip to and from Las Vegas, we had to travel through the Mojave Desert. I think the desert holds its own special kind of beauty.

Alien jerky, anyone? This place is in Baker, Ca. the halfway point through the Mojave Desert. It can get to temperatures of up to 134 degrees during the summer.

These cloud formations were so strange.

Did you know that Borax crystals were discovered here in the 1880s? Eighteen mules and two draft horses were used to transport borax from Death Valley to the railroad junction in Mojave, hence the term "20 mule team borax." There is now a road by that name here and a modern plant in Mojave where the crystals are mined today. My mom always used borax in the laundry and I have continued using it, but I never knew where it came from. It was cool to accidentally discover where it is actually mined.