"Hey, since we're in the area, let's take a little detour." I said, since we were on a road trip and happened to be driving though the Indio Valley past the exit for Joshua Tree. I didn't really wait for my Loving Spouse to argue before adding the destination to our route.

I'd learned about the Noah Purifoy outdoor art museum on a website of unusual things to see and do, and had pinned it on my map as Want To Go. I figured we were in the area, now was our best chance to check it out.

"In the area" turned out to be a relative term. After exiting, it was at least a thirty minute drive on smaller and smaller roads until the pavement ended and we found ourselves driving into the high desert flats on a road of dirt and gravel.

"What is this place again?" Loving Spouse wanted to know.

"It's an outdoor art museum!" I enthused, thus exhausting the entirety of my knowledge about the site.

We arrived at what appeared to be a slightly festive junkyard and parked beside a chain link fence with a sign that said "museum parking" but appeared to be beside somebody's house. Climbing out, we wandered over to where a metal box held brochures about the artwork, including a numbered map with names of the various installations. No one else seemed to be around and there didn't seem to be any obvious path so we just kind of wandered in a clockwise circuit around the grounds, guessing at each installations title and/or meaning. I'll be the first to admit that, even having studied art in college I found most of it to be mystifyingly opaque. Many of the installations looked like accumulations of just...Junk.

"Is this ART?" I found myself asking. "Broken glass and old furniture and mannequin parts? What does it even MEAN?"

I can't imagine what Loving Spouse thought I'd dragged him into, but he made an effort to gamely participate in the experience and I appreciated it. I snapped a handful of photos: I was THERE after all, and as Loving Spouse reminded me numerous times, had gone an hour out of our way to get there. As far as I could discern, this Noah Purifoy had gone out into the desert and just proceeded to fill his entire property with installations of junk-art, giving zero shits if anyone liked or understood it, and I respected that. I envied it a bit too: I longed for that kind of artistic audacity in my own life. And so, even without understanding a single piece, I learned a lot.

Afterwards, when I got home and was looking at the photos, I realized there was a lot more form and intentionality to the various pieces than I'd picked up on in person. I'd been so focused on "ew, junk" I'd more or less missed the point of all the pieces. Somehow, seeing them framed and flattened in a photograph made me see them through clearer eyes. So, now in retrospect, I quite like a lot of the pieces that I didn't have much time for at first glance.

Anyway, I enjoyed it and recommend it to anyone with an adventurous spirit, a bit of artistic interest, and a patient Loving Spouse who will tolerate going A WHOLE HOUR out of their way to go see it.