For this, our Desert Travel issue, I returned to the place I\u2019d wanted to escape so badly, and, to my surprise, I found myself a little reluctant to leave. Part of it, of course, was that I could see now the beauty I\u2019d willfully ignored as a teenager\u2014the way the surrounding mountains, some of them snow-capped, bite into the enormous blue sky like a puppy\u2019s craggy molars; the way the wind blows the sand into oceanic ripples. But the other part was that I could feel the culture growing all around me. <\/p>\n
Teenagers roamed through caf\u00e9s and shops owned by people only a little older than they were. In contrast to my classmates and I, my younger brother and his group of artist friends not only have things to do but access to a creative scene that proves big dreams aren\u2019t solely for other cities. While the valley still has the quiet gravity that probably drew my grandparents there in the first place, a bud\u2014one that I had sensed forming for years on my regular trips back home\u2014is blooming.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo many people that had second homes here stayed full-time [during Covid],\u201d Indio resident Nicole Massoth told me, \u201cand it changed the context of opportunity and success. But, also, for a lot of young people [who grew up here], it became a Renaissance moment, where people were dreaming about starting businesses and then executing them.\u201d Massoth owns The Place, a massive collective of SoCal small businesses in downtown Indio, where locals are revitalizing the neighborhood with their own hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want every single young person to take over all of these empty buildings and opportunities and really breathe life into their own futures,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
My 12-year-old self would be shocked, but it\u2019s an exciting time to be from the Coachella Valley. That also makes it a wonderful time to visit, with so much new to explore and that palpable energy of possibility in the air. I write about the way Massoth and other valley residents are revolutionizing the area on page 66. And I\u2019m not the only one seeing the desert in a new light\u2014on page 71, Director of Creative Projects Nicolle Monico heads to Sedona, hoping to tap into the transformative forces said to swirl around the Arizona city\u2019s soaring red rocks.<\/p>\n
Speaking of rocks, on page 44, we step into an Escondido<\/a> home that coexists with the giant boulders that pepper its site\u2014by inviting the stones inside. Designed by Drew Hubbell (the equally sustainably-minded son of artist and green building legend James Hubbell), it shows the same innovative spirit in architecture that the audacious chefs at tasting-menu-only La Jolla restaurant Lucien show in food. Content Chief Troy Johnson reviews Lucien and its extraordinary egg dish on page 26.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve also got a roundup of some of the county\u2019s best sweet treats on page 24, a look inside the psyche of a local thriller writer willing to get himself kidnapped for research (it\u2019s paid off\u2014he got a Netflix deal) on page 40, and a behind-the-scenes peek at how the San Diego Museum of Art curated its centennial exhibition on page 36. Page 80 offers the latest trends and hot tips in the world of weddings, including\u2014my favorite, as someone currently engaged\u2014expert advice for how to best distribute that budget. <\/p>\n Closing out the issue, on page 96, is the story of San Diego DJ and cultural pioneer Makeda \u201cDread\u201d Cheatom, who, much like the young entrepreneurs changing the game in the Coachella Valley, saw that something was missing here (in her case, Bob Marley\u2019s music and a universal cultural center) and set out to bring it to life herself.<\/p>\n Finally, if you\u2019ll allow me to quote something already very overquoted, I\u2019ll briefly tell you the story of Gertrude Stein\u2019s return to her hometown of East Oakland. She had been away for three decades, and when she arrived to find the house and trees and garden of her memories gone, she wrote, sadly, \u201cthere is no there, there.\u201d I learned the real, despairing emotion behind that quote later; when I first read it, divorced from context, I assumed (like many others before me) that she was disparaging her native city as identityless, dull.<\/p>\n PARTNER CONTENT<\/p>\n
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