Dispatch: Week of July 6
A Joshua Tree National Park rescue, Yucca Valley commences roadwork, and California revisits state cannabis taxes
Hello from California’s high desert. I hope you had a safe and enjoyable Fourth of July, or at the very least got to take advantage of a long weekend. We’ve got yet another dove chick around the house, so that’s been our entertainment as of late.
Now, onto this week’s news:
In local news:
A Desert Hot Springs man was airlifted out of Joshua Tree National Park on Tuesday after sustaining a heat-related illness while hiking.
Gregory Nawrocki, 57, is recovering after being rescued from the Boy Scout Trail in the National Park.
Yucca Valley has started its annual road repair project in Storey Park, Country Club, and along Sunnyslope Drive.
Work will run through Friday (July 8) with traffic down to a single lane during the project with flaggers helping direct traffic.
The full map of this year’s project can be found here.
Panda Chinese Restaurant in Yucca Valley was closed as of June 30 following its failing a county public health inspection.
More details are here, but I recommend you only read on after you’ve already eaten.
Mexican Street Tacos in Twentynine Palms was also inspected last week following reports and received a B grade from the county. A follow-up inspection has been scheduled.
National Park officials have confirmed a new species in the park!
A wildlife camera in Joshua Tree National Park captured a photo of a zone-tailed hawk, the first confirmed sighting of the bird in Joshua Tree.
Zone-tailed hawks are typically seen in South and Central America and into Southwestern US, though the species’ habitat has moved northwards in recent years.
Our real estate market received the Wall Street Journal treatment this week.
Riverside County recorded its first confirmed case of monkeypox on Wednesday afternoon. The patient is being treated in the Coachella Valley at Eisenhower Health.
In state news:
The state is overhauling its tax infrastructure for the cannabis industry as part of the budget bill passed last week.
The changes include new tax credits for some cannabis businesses, expanded labor rights, pushing state excise taxes to retailers, and eliminating the cultivation tax on growers.
The excise tax will pause at 15% for three years, after which regulators could raise the rate.
The Electra Fire in Amador and Calaveras Counties in north central California was just under 4,000 acres and 10% contained as of noon Wednesday.
At least 38 counties across the state have recorded “high” community transmission of COVID-19 amid an ongoing omicron variant surge.
This is a fascinating story on the state’s surplus of almonds.
In other news:
The FDA officially authorized pharmacists to prescribe Paxlovid as a COVID-19 treatment on Wednesday.
There’s a lot of chaos on the other side of the ocean with the UK government.
Pupdate of the week: Alice’s favorite person is back from back-to-back trips and she hasn’t let him out of her sight in several days. Both dogs did surprisingly well with the fireworks over the weekend, but maybe that’s because they felt order was finally restored to the house with both humans present.
Trail tip of the week: If you are going on a longer hike or hiking somewhere that requires different gear, take it for a test drive before hitting the trail. We just opened up a water filter for an upcoming hike and have been testing it locally before we leave just to make sure we’ve worked out any kinks. There’s no disappointment quite like that of new gear not working out on a hike.
Read of the week: I am basically only reading trail and hike reviews on AllTrails, hiker forums, and Facebook groups as we get down to the wire on a big trip in a few weeks. So first of all, thank you to everyone that leaves extremely detailed reviews on those pages! And second, if you’re also venturing out might I recommend www.mountain-forecast.com for all your weather and wind needs.
Show of the week: Did you watch the second half of Stranger Things Season 4 on Netflix? Because if not, go do that right now. The season’s soundtrack alone makes it worth the watch, but make sure to budget enough time to get through the last episode in one sitting (runtime: 2 hours, 22 minutes).
That’s it for this week. I hope you have a great weekend and get a chance to get outside!
- Megan
Always enjoy reading this. Very informative and interesting!!