Old Postcard

I really like this old postcard titled "Smoke Trees and Desert Road Near 29 Palms, California". Yes, this looks like a lot of the desert roads out in my neck of the woods in 29 Palms.

I don't know exactly where this road is, but on the back of the postcard, it says "We started out on road like this to Key's View. It got rougher, and the ruts were deeper as we went farther." No signature, no stamp... the postcard was never sent. I wonder if they ever made it to Keys View, or if they gave up, turned around, and went home? Or perhaps got stuck is some deep sand and had to get pulled out?

Unfortunately, the postcard is not dated. But it really got me wondering about the roads in Joshua Tree National Park (back then a National Monument) and when they were paved. I contacted David Denslow, Lead Park Ranger, Joshua Tree National Park. He did some quick research for me and found out the road to Keys View was given a hardened surface in 1954, but wasn't officially "paved" until 1984. That would mean this postcard was pre-1954. It's hard to imagine what driving through the Park was like pre-1954 on these sandy, rutted roads. What an adventure and a challenge it would have been. And back then, it would have been a very remote area!