Oro Grande - Lucerne Valley Road Trip

I Am Not
Dec 23, 2020
2 min read

Our first trip of December was up Hwy 15 to visit a few spots along Route 66. We didn't have a robust schedule of events and really I just wanted to take a nice, long drive with my pretty girl. We planned on stopping by to see the Bottle Tree Farm and the little town of Oro Grande, both of which are along Route 66. I'd taken a look of the surrounding area in a 50-mile radius, looking for other interesting places that we could visit if time allowed and/or circumstances required. Turns out that this would be a good thing. We left town around 0900 and stopped an hour up the road in the town of Victorville to get our traditional McDonald's breakfast. Thirty minutes later we were driving west along Route 66, passing through the little town of Oro Grande. It was a quaint tourist trap that we quickly drove through (not hard as it's only a couple blocks long) and headed to the bottle farm. Unfortunately, the bottle farm was closed due to COVID. We looked at it through the fence and then were on our way. This is when Ms. Blue Eyes' GI issues started acting up but fortunately, there was no shortage of quiet, brush-lined back roads to stop and hide behind. Fortunately, I'd packed a big pack of wet wipes! We were soon on our way and driving through Oro Grande again. We stopped at an old market and then stopped again to check out the little river that ran through the town. What a get in this big old desert town!

Half an hour later, we were headed east, passing through Apple Valley on our way to Lucerne Valley. It had been 10 years since I'd been there and I was hoping that it was the quaint little run-down desert town that I remembered. The drive was beautiful and mostly flat. The road eventually becomes two lanes only and really that was enough as nobody really lives out here, so traffic is minimal. Once we arrived at Lucerne Valley, we turned north on the 247 to the dry lake bed that I wanted to photograph Ms. Blue Eyes on. It was easy to drive on to the bed and walk out far enough where nobody driving by 1000 meters away would notice. We shot for about half an hour and I was so happy. I'd wanted to do this ever since I took my first art nude of her. I'll post a picture of her on the next post because it's just awesome and deserves its own post!

After we left the dry lake bed, we drove to some old adobe houses that we'd noticed on the drive in. We took some more photos at those houses and then departed for home. The drive back was as nice as the drive there, though much colder! It was 48F as we drove south on the 15 through the pass! It was another great trip with my pretty girl and I'm glad that we were able to make this happen.