Post #218817 by mbonga on Sat, Mar 4, 2006 5:56 AM

Since folks have been writing here about Route 66 / Amboy and since there's been a related question nagging at me for the last few years, I'll post my question.

I remember an old desert museum that my family used to always stop at, spanning at least 1960-1973, probably even into the 1950s. When heading inland from San Diego towards Desert View Tower / Jacumba / Salton Sea / Indio / Palm Springs, via I-8 and smaller offshoot highways, it was on the left side of the road. It was a single story, single room museum that was a popular tourist stop. The windows were made of bottles pointing inwards, and on the inside were flat display tables covered with chicken wire to prevent theft, and the displays were unorganized and unlabeled desert things like purple sunbleached bottles, rocks, sand concretions, bullets, arrow heads, ocotillo stems, fossils, skulls, even pieces of coral and shells. There must have been a gift shop and refreshments and bathrooms, and I think there were interesting things outside, too, maybe wagonwheels or sand concretions or something along those lines.

I e-mailed a guy who had an extensive website about that old desert route and its attractions, but he never wrote back. I'm unable to find any reference to such a museum online. It's not the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, I don't think, because that's in Arizona, and it's not the Palm Springs Desert Museum, either, since it was closer to San Diego / Salton Sea. It would take somebody who actually remembers the museum, I think, to know which place I'm talking about. I also remember a refreshment stand in that desert area from the late '50s & early '60s that probably served ice cream, and had outside shaded tables near the window, and the exterior wall of the stand made of rose quartz. If either of these places rings a bell and if someone can narrow these places down in location or names, I'd appreciate it.

[ Edited by: mbonga 2006-03-06 18:07 ]