The Mesa Panorama

Blow it up to all of its full sized glory, I’m giving you the raw file, not a compressed version.

This is from a spot across from the Hesperia airport and the BNSF main line train tracks, overlooking one of the dry river beds that lead down from the Victor Valley (Hesperia, Victorville, Apple Valley) into the Mesa, which leads downhill through Cajon Pass into the Inland Empire region between Los Angeles and Palm Springs.

Way, way over on the right you can see a small, yellow building – that’s Don Reyes Airport Cafe, which was pretty stinkin’ good.

Just to the right of center you can see houses, streets, and whole developments down in the gulch at the bottom of the dry river bed. That can’t be a good place to be when the rains come…

That mountain that I was talking about yesterday is just to the left of center. Looking at the “All Trails” hiking app with its topo maps, I’m wondering if that might be Luna Mountain, with Round Mountain the similarly sized mountain to its left. We’ll see.

The plants filling that gulch? I think the taller, more angular ones are yucca trees, while the more squat and bushy ones dotting the scene everywhere are creosote. And the small, scraggly ones in the immediate foreground are tumbleweeds.

Are there rattlesnakes and critters out there? I did not go looking to see. Let’s just assume that there were and I’ll leave them alone if they’ll do the same for me. I’m not a fan of the more venomous reptiles, fine with sticking with the Freds and Bubbas of the fence lizard worlds.