Lake Wainani: A Beautiful Place

Out on I-40 headed towards Vegas, the high desert is mostly a place for passing. It stands in contrast to its trendy cousin, aptly referred to as the 'low desert,' a flat landscape scattered with salt beds; its elevation below 2,000 feet as it stretches from the bottom of the state to the city of Lancaster. Among the low desert cities are renowned destinations, national parks, homes and bars adorned with art deco furniture and vintage antiques, where attractive people camp in curated buses and Airbnb's, where the coastal kids do mushrooms. They make love and drink cheap beer for its aesthetic appeal. They post photos as they sweat over the streets and bars, post photos of the backyard pools and the speakeasy at the edge of a private airport. They lounge in the post-Hollywood dream left to melt in the desert, which was sculpted by artists, bought by collectors, and turned into a gallery to enjoy for a price. 

In contrast to the shimmer, the high desert is callous, its dried lakes and abandoned buildings scar the landscape. At roughly 2,000-4,000 ft. elevation, its boundaries span the Great Mojave Desert, the Basin of Nevada, Death Valley and the Sierra Mountains. Because of its elevation, its range for hot and cold temperatures is greater than the low, its storms more violent, its jagged terrain harsh and in places mountainous. It is a place of rejection, of forgotten cities, and for those who know how to get there, the lake-ridden town of Newberry Springs.

You drive past the mountainous climb from the coast, the industrial rot of military surplus stores, and the ultra-suburban mega mall outlets. First introduced in ‘57, the segment of road known as Interstate 40 between Needles and Lake Havasu runs parallel to, and even becomes, the infamous Route 66 as it moves through Newberry. It is not uncommon for the sand drifts to shift across its surface, for the tumbleweeds to roll across the astral landscape dotted with bushes that rise and fall like waves washing on hills. Like the spiders and snakes that call this place home, there are worlds hidden beneath its initial facade: a farmers market appears on the weekends, pistachio farms hide on large acreage down long dirt roads. It is home to retirees and thrill seekers, meth heads and drunks, doomsday preppers and nudist resorts, makeshift monasteries and weekend warriors looking to escape the suburbs—the Bagdad Café, Lenin's head, the Volcano House, and hieroglyphics hidden deep in the mountains. 

In town there are the crumbling remains of the revolutionary project of Route 66: shuttered buildings, a closed hardware store, a local bar serving free beer for marines on Sundays, support-your-local-Vagos-chapter stickers slapped onto gas station pumps. The 66 signs haunt the space like a symbol of American fairytales. The overlooked, if not forgotten, contradiction of our cultural heritage: that the deepest form of our collective connection is sewn with the symbol of individual freedom, a thread, however loose, holding our love of cars together.

***

From the road, the water is almost unnoticeable. But on the other side of the homes, the shoreline of Lake Wainani is a patchwork of paradisical visions, the land sliced and divided for residents like a postmodern sandbox. Here, California becomes a little Hawaii, each home sitting on a two-acre lot with its own private shoreline: a sandy beach, poked with palms appears side-by-side with the neighbor's glistening grass, various soils and minerals collide in the mix of pine needles falling from the trees above, their sprawling roots sipping the water. The lake is warm and shallow, intentionally designed for skiing, boating, and swimming, as the houses surround the coves like a suburban cul-de-sac, equipped with boats, boards, and everything else that goes vroom on the water.

‍ ‍Wainani, the residents will tell you, means beautiful water and the homeowners keep up their paradise with continuous attention, as do the various surrounding neighborhoods at Lake Jodie, Crystal Lake, or Lake Cheyenne. These lakes were made, not found, as water-front escapes starting in 1956, by drilling into the underground Mojave river and pulling up the ground water which runs mere feet below its surface. Many of them are designed for water skiing competitions, while others are purely for recreation. At many of the lakes, the water is dyed blue to evoke a tropical oasis, so when you put your hand in it, you can’t see it from the surface.

At dusk, the boats putt slowly by, always counterclockwise around the median island. Under cover of the tree's silhouettes, the desert is hidden in the hazy mirage of a watercolor sunset, as residents drink and commune into the night, drifting to an assortment classic '80s, top forties country, Martin Denny’s canonical Exotica—anything to shake their vision like a blanket out over the night—transforming the lake into the Mississippi, the Seine, or, at least, a ride at Disneyland. There is a sense of serenity as the boats glide past manicured lawns, the American flags and tiki torches, the vintage motorcycle signs and pot-iron art that has come to define the land. The black sky fills with the songs of a weekend and the desert is drowned in the pleasures of escapism. 

***

Marissa’s feet have become as callous as her grandmother’s from walking the shoreline, she tells me, as she sweeps the sand without any shoes on. Just like her grandma used to at the tree yard, where the family business housed their tractors and chippers at the base of Mount Baldy. 

Her husband Daniel goes by Danny and is busy with projects. When he is not in the water, he is digging a trench to run the WiFi cable, pouring concrete onto a new portion of the yard, saving money for a new vehicle to take him deeper into the mountains.

But moving to the middle of nowhere is never done in complete isolation. With them in the desert are two dogs, Gunner and Gracie, both of which were abandoned in various remote places around the lake. Gunner was found first while Marissa was laying like-side on the grass and heard gunshots ricochet off the ground. When a group of residents went to sort out the issue, they found Gunner nursing a gunshot wound with a few other puppies under a bush. In the distance were a pack of wild dogs, the typical fate for those that are dumped in the desert. Now, Gunner looks like the runt from a litter of German shepherds, and along with his big, brown eyes, you’ll hear the story of how he got his name.

Once again on her evening walks, Marissa heard a litter crying in a house decaying in the sand. There are many in the high desert, and even a locally famous neighborhood where a lot of former homes are buried up to the roof in sand. She rescued and distributed the puppies to residents of the lake, same as Gunner’s siblings. Now, there are wild German shepherds named after weapons and mixed Belgium Malinois named after biblical virtues— dogs with near unlimited athletic potential, fearsome bites, enormous teeth, and, for Gracie, a frilly pink bow. 

  Despite its desolate location, Newberry Springs is a place of life: rattlers, scorpions, rabbits, coyotes, and dogs. The drilling into the underground Mojave river to form lakes has made it a home for various birds. Blue herons, ducks, and geese mate at the lakes and terrorize homeowners. The geese bully the smaller birds and scatter their poop on the lawns surrounding the water, enticing the dogs to rush from the door to gobble the pellets. 

They love the smell, Marissa tells me, it makes them high, as she scrambles to shoo some geese from the lawn. She struggles to keep Gunner from running through the sliding glass door, and when he does, Gracie will follow to scoop up the diseases transmitted through the feces and then run in circles before cooling in the water.

The geese and dogs fight over the limited shade and soft green lawns in search for rest from the sun, both violent and living where they do not belong, drawing borders on land that was never intended for lawns, or beaches, or birds with webbed feet. In spring, when new geese are born, they are too slow and weak to avoid the dogs that snap their necks and shake them like toys. 

Marissa scolds Gunner for the goose in his mouth, as Danny disposes of the body. He cleans the concrete and sweeps the remaining poop into a bucket. Their boat clicks against the side of the dock and the shore falls into the lake one grain at a time, and it’s easy to forget that the lake is not a lake, their war is not a war—the geese are full of shit, but the dogs don't know it.  

***

At the gas station, there's a sign hanging over the road with faded letters, the price ticker empty. There's a Subway restaurant with outdoor tables attached to the side of the building— a gas-station-grocery-store-fast-food-super-stop. You've seen one before, complete with a gift store selling patriotic hats and erotic-themed mugs. Here, I meet Mike, who approaches my car in his plaid shirt, his unzipped pants split below a fastened button so I can see the pattern of his boxers. 

The smell of alcohol flows into the car as he leans against the open window, recoiling his arm when it touches the hot metal. He used to have a house in Orange County, where the mansions are only from the water, where the coast once lined with oil derricks is now home to private schools, clubs, and jets. The desert allows many to extend their misplaced belief in humanity, who want to believe that strangers still talk, neighbors are friends, and the changing climate is a government lie to break up that harmony.

‍ ‍Nudists, he tells me, are the nicest people around, the best. 

And their nearby waterholes? 

That’s nothing compared to when they were living on compounds with only their freckles. 

Did I want to go to a watering hole? 

There was a time he hopped the fence with his friends completely naked and they welcomed him in, and the women's breasts hung like testicles while the men’s wieners cooked by the pool.

Did I want to see a watering hole? 

Continuing my drive, I pass the head of Vladimir Lenin facing the street on a private lawn made from stainless steel and measuring 21 feet. It’s from a sculpture titled: “Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the Top of Lenin’s Head.” The original sculpture, according to the artist, depicts a small Chairman Mao balancing on top of Lenin. Now displayed without the tiny-Mao, it has moved hands through many exhibitions before landing on the private lawn in Newberry Springs and is just one of the regions anti-Chinese communist monuments, including a tribute to tenement square at Liberty Sculpture Park. After sparking fear that the commies were coming to take over the desert, the owner has spoken about his plans to build a cage around the head to show how Lenin’s ideas represent imprisonment.

***

Despite its liberal reputation, California is not a place of revolutions. With the largest population of military personnel in the country, it is a bastion for U.S. bases, weapons manufacturers, and subsidiary companies of Raytheon and Lockheed Martin located across the state from natural landscapes to strip malls. Camp Pendleton alone boasts 125,000 acres of military training facilities, complete with Afghan style-village constructions. As a child, most Southern Californians can remember seeing tanks gliding next to their cars on the Pacific Coast Highway or watching from their car window as the troops rappelled from helicopters onto the make-shift villages. This, of course, was what we could see, as most of the acreage was hidden in the hills. 

Driving across the I-15 onto a dirt road, I feel that familiar bubbling in my chest that I had as a child, now with an added pit of guilt, as helicopters rise from the side of a mountain one after the other. They come from the hills, past the Calico Ghost Town and up the windy road to Fort Irwin. Originally designated to prepare troops for the Korean war, it has trained U.S. troops for desert combat ever since the end of Vietnam. It is a suburb with stores and restaurants, a sports stadium, a disc golf course, and an airport overlooking the valley. Like the camouflage uniform slipped over its soldiers, it is lost in the backdrop of the desolate landscape, as the war machine hides in the hills, thriving in a place where nothing ever happens. 

The helicopters fall out of view, and my next destination shimmers in the distance, as St. Antony's Monastery looms over the flat expanse. The grounds are silent. The swamp coolers hum and drip onto the earth, but the buildings are locked, and there are no answers to any amount of knocking. St. Abashkaroun's Lake, the monastery gift shop, the monks' living quarters comprised of mobile trailers, the rotted-wood cupolas on top of the buildings, their domes splintered and broken, their crucifixes bent, all of it silently suffering under the sun. The church is the monastery's immaculate centerpiece, a bright, white structure with wrought iron doors, ornate crosses, and intricate lattice work on the pillars and windows. It dwarfs the rest of the buildings, its silence evoking a sense of the desperate. The second-hand pews are left unbolted to the ground; the worn, dirty prayer pamphlets on an otherwise spotless floor tell the story of a mop and a man with a sense of duty. 

I hear the faces whispering secrets of bloodshed, guarded traditions, centuries of silence that Coptics have held amidst the late-capitalist franchising of U.S. Christianity, where mega-churches sprout like Shell station Subway's on I-15; where Junípero Serra organized the California missions that enslaved the natives; a dream molded from the dirt and dismal conditions as the monks turn meth and heat and dusty red carpets into a holy of holies. 

Returning from the monastery, I pass the ruins of Rock-a-HoolaWater Park as the helicopters commit patterned dives above the abandoned structures.Strewn about the hillside above the dusty cavern of what used to be Lake Dolores, the local landmark is a reminder of the area’s heyday, a graveyard of abandoned concrete slides, food stands, and emptied pools. Shut down permanently after the death of an employee on the night before its grand-reopening in 1990, the slides and pools that pulled from the once thrivinglake have become canvases, a graffiti-bombed haven for explorers and artists. The taggers baptize Rock-a-Hoola in their sacred vernacular, as the Mojave Desert has no mercy for sites like this, which bastardize the region's meaning, "people who live along the water." 

As the sunlight recedes, the monastery bells ring in the distance, the desert wind whistles, the concrete slide filters sand into dried-out Lake Dolores as the clouds gather the sunset like a paper towel sopping spilled wine. I hear the clanging of Junipero Serra statues toppled in Downtown Los Angeles, in San Luis Obispo’s mission plaza, off the 280 Interstate near San Francisco. The Mojave expunges its rage from the underground flowing beneath, its fury roaring under the abandoned buildings and hodgepodge shorelines—all of it sucked up into the cloud—the blood and dust, the blue-dyed water, the cries of the geese, the U.S. war crimes, the prophecy of monks as they clamor their bells—from the dust you were made, and to dust you shall return. 

***

Since moving to the lake, Danny has taken a liking to birds. Standing at the edge of the water, he cracks open a beer, a Corona with lime, and steps onto his shore. He leans into the silence, his face like the desert, dried and scarred, runs his toes on the bright green lawn in front of the garage he's spent hours arranging in the triple-digit heat. Trees trimmed, yard clear, the yellow grass growing greener each day. His apartment in the burbs now someone else's problem.

I see his eyes light up as the surface of the water goes black, and the electric-solar-powered tiki torches ignite, and the bullfrogs moan, and the geese calls reverberate as they land like a series of seaplanes. The water ripples on a seamless reflection, and suddenly, a rocket soars into the sky. An unexpected space station launches curiously into the void, a meandering trail of propulsion and magic, and suddenly, it’s me that has forgotten where I am at—a big blue ball floating somewhere in space. 

The disappearing sun leaves violent colors, the world projecting what is often hidden. Above the island the small birds dive and dart in and out of the light, their bodies circling some undefined center. They swell in the ombre horizon, the orange light fading upward in a slight gradation as it transitions to blue, slowly ascending into darkness. If only all of life were so simple, a gradual change from one thing to another, a beginning and end, and something in between that’s a bit indescribable. 

He puts the bottle to his lips and sighs. 

"Aren't they beautiful?" he says, as they fade into night.