Commerce through the Desert

Looking north from Box Canyon road across what looks to be an utterly wild stretch of the Mojave Desert--till you notice all the big trucks in the middle distance! They're on Interstate 10, here crossing one of the driest parts of the Mojave on the way to the Los Angeles Basin. I-10, which runs thru San Gorgonio Pass separating the San Jacinto Mtns (on the south) from the San Bernardino Mtns (on the north), is one of the main routes into LA. We're about 50 miles east of the pass here. San Gorgonio Pass, btw, is defined by one of the branches of the San Andreas fault. Cottonwood Mountains (in Joshua Tree National Park) on the skyline; Shaver Valley in the foreground. The prominent bush with dark green leaves in the center-right foreground is creosote bush (Larrea tridentata), a characteristic element of the Mojave flora.