Ex-bull rider Bucky Stone bags oranges for sale at Kramer Junction.

Our Sunday paper is published in conjunction with our larger, sister Victorville paper 30 miles south. B1 is the front of the second section and it is called appropriately enough the High Desert page. Different stuff of interest to both communities is published on this page along with the executive editor's weekly column (very funny guy) and the earthquake report (not funny).

As luck would have it, the photographers at the sister paper usually do not have much for that page so it is up to me to fill it. Darn. I *have* to find feature stories, photo packages, wild art - you name it - to put on that page.

I love B1! It is an opportunity to shoot just for me, to try different things. To explore little towns and old cemeteries. To follow dirt roads to obscure springs and old homesteads - and answer the questions they ask. Life is SO full of questions.

This Saturday I took off with a spring in my step, a song in my heart and a full tank of gas. Lara was a happy girl. Destinations: Randsburg, Red Mountain, Johannesburg - all in a funky, historic mining district about 60 miles from Barstow.

On the way to these little burgs there is a four-way stop called Kramer Junction. I have always wanted to stop there and shoot. It is full of little shops and booths that cater to those just passing through.

Shopper Nancy Morris can't decide on which ceramic sculpture she wants to buy.

Wind chimes and their shadows sing in a light breeze.

Gaudy colours and tawdry trinkets beckon even the most weary traveler. Fruits, nuts, cactus and Mexican pottery - portraying everyone from Elvis to Jesus - decorate the roadside. This was the perfect opportunity I thought, to photograph this place and YES!, put it on B1.

So I did.

March 1, 1998

Lara Hartley