Slow to Nothing
My son and I were running an hour ahead of schedule early morning on a 1,000 mile road trip with a scheduled stop at Granny's for lunch in Riverside. We decided to kill the hous and grab breakfast off Interstate 10 between Blythe and Indio to investigate a diner we read about on Yelp. The reviews were mixed, but both had described a ghost town environment.
The early warnings didn't prepare us for the desolation and loneliness of a town passed by time and energy. I had a long chat with the bored, restless waitress as we waited for my corned beef hash and my son's chicken strips. The famed Desert Center which has prepared thousands of Patton's troops to fight in World War II and been the setting for AirWolf and other television productions has fallen on hard times.
She filled our ears with the shocks that the rise in oil prices had delivered to the town. Nobody, it seems, wanted to stop at a hole in the wall diner in the middle of nowhere once the casual tourism had dried up. The few locals sitting at the bar and tables seemed comfortable enough in their existence, but the battered buildings, dilapidated condition of the Desert Center Cafe, and the air of decrepitude of the whole town reminded me that I was lucky to live in a town and area with vigor, dynamism, and pride of place.
I can't recommend the Desert Center Cafe for their food, but if you want an object lesson in the decline of a town and you have a few minutes to spare between Los Angeles and Phoenix, stop in for a visit.
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