Space Cowboy Books in Joshua Tree is a whimsically named store specializing in science fiction, but with a stock of westerns too. Also, fiction, poetry and more. I visited last month while in the area and interviewed owner Jean-Paul Garnier about science fiction, life in the desert and being a small-businessman during COVID. That story makes up my Sunday column. Finally, the third and final column from my vacation a month ago is done — whew. What can I tell you, local news kept intruding.

More about Joshua Tree, as the lauded restaurant La Copine secures its future by buying its building (a curious cat is involved) and the Noah Purifoy museum gets a $100,000 arts grant. Also, desert-scented soap is purchased and old-school country music is heard, all in my Friday column, my second of three dispatches from the desert. Look for Part 3 sometime soon.

I visited Joshua Tree for Easter weekend, after having postponed my expected mid-March visit due to our crummy weather. I offer my observations and experiences in my Sunday column. Expect two more desert columns in the near future. I like the change of pace and hope you as readers do too.

I visit the Noah Purifoy Outdoor Art Museum, the 10-acre site where the Black assemblage artist lived and worked from 1989 until his death in 2004. He created installations around the site out of castoffs. It’s curious, and free to visit. It’s the subject of my Sunday column.

I make a return visit to Joshua Tree and environs to hike, dine, shop and stargaze. It was another fun time, even if certain elements didn’t go perfectly. That just sets things up for a return visit, right? I write about my desert trip in Sunday’s column.

My latest column begins with an anecdote from my mini-vacation involving my car that I liked but that I’d cut from my first column for space reasons. Then we segue into reader comments on my columns about Joshua Tree, its national park and the bookstore in Twentynine Palms. It all ends with an item from Upland — that involves the desert. All that is in Sunday’s column.

The desert’s small towns have a surprising number of bookstores. I focus on one in Twentynine Palms, Raven’s Bookshop, after interviewing the owner while I was on vacation next door in Joshua Tree. The store and its delightful history is the subject of Sunday’s column.

I recently discovered and became an admirer of Desert Oracle, a journal published from Joshua Tree, as well as a hardcover book collecting its best writing and a podcast/radio show. I write about the weird, wonderful publication in Sunday’s column. (And this will explain the reference in Friday’s column to taking an unnamed book into the national park as the appropriate scene for a photo.)

I visit Joshua Tree National Park for the first (but not last) time and tell how it went in Friday’s column. Have you been?

I spent three nights in Joshua Tree last week and wondered why I never went there until now. Have you been? I write about my mini-vacation in Wednesday’s column. (The national park will get its own column, probably Friday.)

One of my visions for my column after its geographic expansion last summer is that I would explore portions of the Inland Empire beyond simple there-and-back reporting trips to Riverside or San Bernardino. A little tough to accomplish with three deadlines per week — even getting to Riverside or San Bernardino on a weekday takes some planning — but it’s finally been done. Let me know what you think.