100427 - Green Acres

April 27,2010
Green Acres
Desert Center, California

Leaving the Colorado River area, we headed east. There is a small museum outside of Palm Springs that we have been meaning to visit but never did, so we looked for campgrounds near by to stay at.

Green Acres is a small mobile home park in an area of the Mojave called Desert Center and it is appropriately named. It is in the middle of nowhere with a population of less than 20 and the main street consists of a post office, a 24 hour diner and a number of adjacent small buildings decorated with signs such as “Closed” or” For Sale”.

While we did not expect to be greeted by Eva Gabor or Mr. Haney, we were happy to meet the owner of the park, Mary. Originally from New Jersey, she came out west like so many others and somehow became the owner of this mobile home park for the past 40: years . In that period, there was a large population due to the large-scale operation at the Alcoa Mine but that was closed in the late 1900’s and the population dwindled. In fact, the town is so small; you have to drive 20 miles to the nearest gas station.

The population of the park is currently about 6 large mobile homes and a few travelers like us in Rvs.
The weather was good and with lots of open space, Danny got to be off leash every day for an exercise period.

One odd thing. Of all the locations we have been at in the past 6 months -big cities, small towns, desolate and remote areas - this is the only site that my Sprint internet connection registered 6 bars, the best reception I have gotten ever - even better than Los Angeles. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would suspect the government has some secret communications installation hidden out here.

We enjoyed our stay here and look forward to retuning in the future, if for no other reason than to see Mary and listen to more of her stories about her past experiences.