Amboy Crater, beloved of UCLA petrology students, is a perfect trainer hike for those who want to feel that they've roughed it without days of hiking or the hassle of tents and sleeping bags. In 45 minutes, we were back in the car and cruising through the lunar landscape toward 29 Palms, where you can get a decent cappuccino at a place called the Finicky Coyote. It is arguably one of the most satisfying ways to get lost for a few days within a mere three hours of L.A. Thanks to an organic garden on the property, the inn's kitchen rustles up surprisingly tasty fresh salads, pastas and seafood dinners. Ghostly white barn owls nest in the twin palms by the pool and provide a nightly dinner show gliding toward their invisible prey. By day, the inn lies silent, pulsating in the heat.
Guests retreat to their air-conditioned bedrooms.
Long-eared jackrabbits pant in the creosote. A lone roadrunner patrols madly while huge black ravens circle the oasis. The mountains that hug the inn's southern edge lie within the mighty Joshua Tree National Monument, a hallucinogenic jumble of boulders the size of office buildings where every Western movie you ever saw as a kid was filmed. 29 Palms is addictive, a sere warp of both time and space. Long may it elude developers, entrepreneurs and designer consciousness.