So Phil took me on a dune buggy ride for our 6 month anniversary of dating. It turns out that we can't rent dune buggies and drive them ourselves. I guess there's some kind of liability involved, since it's somewhat dangerous. So we rented a ride from a guy in Desert Palm Springs, and let him drive us around.
Here's the rental place:
The ride was somewhat wild! The dune buggy was actually a VW bug chassis with a topless shell on it.
At one point, our driver pointed out this oasis:
And had us hike to see it up close!
Later, we visited the windmill farm and finally learned why those windmills exist. Apparently each windmill is sponsored by a different company (like Texaco, Enron, etc.) and produces tons of electricity, which they sell to the grid for a profit. The companies pay to maintain their own windmills.
The windmills are a highly efficient energy source in the wind corridor of Desert Palm Springs. According to our guide, each windmill generates enough electricity to power a small town. Why don't they build these things across the windy deserts of America and save on oil-based fuels? Anyone who's driven from California to Arizona or Nevada knows there's hundreds of miles of empty land.
