This is a nice one. It might be "slightly" dark for my tastes, but the lens choice is great, and all those textures, both in the ground and the sky really give it a harshness that only nature can provide.
Cool, thanks! Although it may seem weird, the wide-open area is actually a limit to mobility. But I love experimenting with the area's beauty.
is it silly that one of my goals in life is to see a drought like that?
nice image!
Thank you. No, it's not silly at all. There's far more to it than meets the eye. The natural history of the area dates back millions and millions of years to when it was under an ocean and then as the mountains a hundred miles to the south rose and formed the river that filled the series of lakes that were filled recently as pleistocene times.
Human prehistory here has been dated as far back as possibly 15,000 years ago. Modern historic times this site was a seasonal habitation site (at the nearby springs) then a military redoubt for fighting a war against the Paiute and Chemehuevi Indians.
Later it was a site for mineral evaporite mining and a way station for a railroad. In the 1950s, a health resort and mineral bath. Doc Springer claimed the waters here could cure everything from hair loss to cancer.
In the last more contemporary years it has become the Desert Studies Center, a satellite campus for Cal State, Fullerton and works with universities such as University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Cal State, San Bernardino and others as a base for desert field trips and studies. It is now also a part of the Mojave National Preserve.
I love it there. I can't see why anyone would want to be anywhere else. Now that's silly!