Joshua Tree National Park (Calif)

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    36 Hours in Joshua Tree, California: Things to Do and See

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    7 a.m.
    Hike to the site of a real-life Western drama
    California’s high-desert scenery often feels like the backdrop of an old western (in Pioneertown, northwest of the park, a set used for many films of the western genre still stands). For the nonfiction version of Wild West-like drama, enter the park via the west entrance and hike to the site of a showdown near the Wall Street Mill, once used to process gold mined in the area. In 1943, two neighbors entered into a fatal duel over a property line disagreement along what’s now the trail. On the path, a sign commemorating the shootout reads, “Here is where Worth Bagley bit the dust at the hand of W.F. Keys.” The sign is a replica of the original one that Keys, the mill’s owner, made and installed himself. At the end of the path, you’ll reach the ruins of the mill, flanked by rusted-out antique cars. The relatively easy hourlong round-trip feels like traveling back in time. More

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      Enough About Gram Parsons’s Death. It’s Time to Celebrate His Music.

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      The country-rock pioneer died 50 years ago at age 26 with two influential solo albums to his name, leaving a legion of “what if”s behind.More than almost any other musician, the country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons’s legacy is entwined with the story of his tragic death, 50 years ago this month.The details are sad, macabre and sordid enough to have inspired a movie titled “Grand Theft Parsons.” Let’s dispense with them here and be done with it: Parsons, a 26-year-old former member of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers who dreamed of creating a utopian genre that he called “cosmic American music,” was preparing for the release of his second solo album when he made a trip to his adopted sanctuary of Joshua Tree National Park.On his second day there, Parsons — a prodigious drinker and drug user who once attempted to kick heroin cold turkey while locked in a room with an also-detoxing Keith Richards — overdosed on morphine and could not be revived. His stepfather immediately arranged to have Parsons’s body flown to Louisiana, perhaps so he would stand a better chance of inheriting a chunk of Gram’s family fortune. More