Pioneertown, CA Bound (via Vegas)

Today we head on the scenic byway to Las Vegas. Vegas is only about a 6-7 hour drive straight down I-15 from Salt Lake. Along the way we will stop at my favorite gas station petting zoo! We are leaving a day early in the hope of missing a big snowstorm about to hit Salt Lake. Vegas is just a stopping point on our trip. We are going to spend two nights there, take my parents to a show, then do the same thing on the way back home to Salt Lake next week. The real purpose of this journey is to visit Paul's land outside of Joshua Tree, and to show my parents. I am excited because it has been a year since I've been down there. This will only be my second visit to a place that is a very important part of my husband's life. He spent a lot of time there over the last twenty years and it is a place where we hope to spend a lot more of our time in the future.

Credit to Wikipedia - not my photo.

The land sits near Pioneertown, CA. According to Wikipedia (and I heard this from Paul too), Pioneertown, CA started as an Old West motion picture set in the 1940s. The movie set was constructed so that actors could live on set and the homes could be used as part of the movie set. Westerns and early tv shows were filmed there including The Cisco Kid and Judge Roy Bean. Roy Rogers was was of the original developers and investors. According to IMDb (my fave) there have been 35 movies or tv series shot in Pioneertown. According to the sign outside the post office (see below) that figure would be more than 200.


My one and only time visiting there I did walk through the downtown - it looks and feels like a movie set, because it was. Check out my photos from last year, below. There are a few businesses and a few people live there in that downtown movie set. I am excited to finally go to Pappy and Harriets Palace in Pioneertown - dubbed (by them) as best honky tonk west of the Mississippi. I've heard a lot about this place from Paul and have been dying to get there and check it out. It is a bar with food and music - apparently well known for its music. Just check out the link for their schedule. There have been some great shows there. It looks like an awesome place.


Check out Pioneertown on Google Maps. Pretty cool location, huh? Towns nearby include Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree, Morongo Valley, Twentynine Palms and the famous Palm Springs. It is close to Joshua Tree National Park (sorry, the official government site is so boring, I decided to link to the wikipedia page instead - far more interesting a read), San Bernadino National Forest and Mojave National Preserve. The roads in and near Pioneertown have great "western" sounding names such as: Annie Oakley Road, Stagecoach Road, Bullwhip Lane, Rimrock Road, Tumbleweed Trail, Ox Yoke Road, Apache Pass, Tonto Rim Lane, Saddle Lane, Roadrunner Rut, Old Woman Springs Road, Twentynine Palms Highway, and my favorite, Gods Way Love.


I will be blogging more about my travels here in the coming days, including photos, so stay tuned...

Outside Pioneertown Post Office. Can you read it?

They say it is one of the most photographed post offices in the US, so I had to take a photograph.

Pioneertown, CA