The High Desert, CA is an unforgettable place to grow up

You know when you see a movie and the main character is in the desert tumbleweed rolling past? How about in Disney’s Cars main character is driving through the desert to get to L.A.? Independence Day when they’re fighting aliens? How about in Fast and Furious when they visit a federal correctional complex in a place called “Victorville”? Yup, that’s the High Desert.

 Situated between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, the High Desert is composed of a couple of towns such as Victorville, Hesperia, and Apple Valley that everyone spends their time in. And all of it is covered in dirt.

As far as the eye can see, its dirt and houses that might as well blend into the dirt.

One of the best views of the High Desert, if you go towards the top of the hill on Bear Valley Rd or Sitting Bull Rd, you can see pretty much all three towns.

It still feels like a small town

Although there are plenty of people between the three towns that live here, it is the epitome of a small town. Everyone knows everyone else through some type of way and is the best study of the “6 degrees of separation” theory known to man. It doesn’t matter who you know, they somehow know your brothers-girlfriends-cousins-friend.

For example, after a leadership camp in LA I found out that one of the friends I made girlfriend’s cousin went to the same high school as me.

Our plants are just about as sturdy and unique as the people that live in High Desert

This guy right here is called a Joshua Tree and in the Mojave Desert as a whole they have the Joshua Tree National Park. If you’ve ever hear U2’s album Joshua Tree, it’s named after these weird looking guys. But you’ll never meet someone in the High Desert that doesn’t like them, they mean home for us.

Also they are one of the most interesting things about our dirt covered town – they only grow in the Mojave Desert and around Jerusalem.

There is THE MALL

Now if you read that and assumed that we have this wonderful amazing, Mall of America– esque wonderland going on out in the middle of nowhere, I’m sorry to disappoint. Its called The Mall because it’s one of about three sources of mass entertainment. It doesn’t have a lot in it, it closes at really early times, especially on Sundays, and the only hangout it provides is for those in middle school whose curfew is the same time the mall closes- at 7.

However it does have a Hot Dog on a Stick, which is a throwback from the 90s that are few and far between, that sells fantastic lemonade.

Literally everything you can think of might be covered in dirt

I mean who doesn’t want that excitement? Between the daily winds that clock in at about 2 o’clock every afternoon and the fact that the city only maintains some of the roads, there’s dirt everywhere. Dirt roads, dirt in your shoes, on your backpack, you name it, the dirts already there.

There is great water-saving-drought-friendly landscaping

In the desert its simply known as “desert landscaping” which in itself is pretty self explanatory. You make the area you have decided to landscape essentially the most artful representation of the desert elements that surround us anyways.

Who knew boulders could be so beautiful?

The food in High Desert is fantastic

Everyday after high school there were ventures to the taco shop in the shopping complex next to us called “My Hacienda” that sold the perfection that is carne asada fries.

Piping hot french fries, covered in cheese, guacamole, sour cream, salsa, onions, peppers, and whatever other topping you wanted paired with an alarmingly large cup of horchata that you and your friends split.

We have fire tornadoes

Yup you read that right. Every year California goes through its fire season, with the desert being particularly afflicted by flames. Fortunately most people in the High Desert have a drier sense of humor than our weather and joke about it. “Who started this one to cancel school again?”, my mom asks. “Everything changed when the fire nation attacked” says a twitter user posting a picture of the flames at the edge of town.

As for the actual fire tornadoes they happened about 20 miles away from us and were a result of the flames getting caught up in the famous desert wind, thus giving it that cozy tornado look.

High Desert is a part of Route 66

That’s right, that thing centered around the plotline of Cars and the Cheetah Girls sang about runs through part of old town Victorville, as a very small part of the history that we have in the town.

People in High Desert don’t care about the two big cities we’re in between

Everyone here is disillusioned with the glitz and glamour of Vegas and L.A., we’re too surrounded by dirt and tumbleweeds to be blinded by it. Plus when you have to devote hours to making sure that your weeds are under the city ordained fire hazard limit its easy to become cynical of it. At the same time though because there’s nothing to do, you devote yourself to your dreams and what entertains you and you end up not giving a damn what anyone else thinks of it.

Fortunately enough, everyone else is usually in the same boat and don’t care what you do either because they have their own way to go.