When I reached the salt flats between wonder valley and Amboy, the landscape opened up and I felt like I had landed on the moon. 80 mph. Faded pink. Muted beige. Sprawling. Endless.

There was nothing ahead of me for what appeared to be miles; the land seemed to extend and foreshorten simultaneously. I drove through the salt flats - the horizon line a blur in which there were moments when I couldn’t tell where the earth ended and the sky began. I drove down into the valley — 80 miles per hour. 85. 90. Beige, pink, brown, white. The salt flats reflected silver in the haze of the late afternoon sun — flashes of light in my peripheral vision; a sea of broken glass. The road began to turn and my GPS told me I would soon turn on to National Trails Highway. Shortly thereafter I reached Amboy, nickname: “The ghost town that ain’t dead yet.”

Amboy Road came to a T. There was a freight train disappearing into the desert on my left and a handful of buildings down the road to my right. I turned right towards the town and crossed over the train tracks. A huge sign rose ahead of me, lit not by neon, but by the afternoon light:

“Roy’s Motel and Cafe — Vacancy,” it read.

Lots of it.

In 1956 the Federal Aid Highway Act was passed, allowing new interstate highways to be built. By the mid-70s, the I-40 had been built between Barstow, California and Wilmington North, Carolina, and cut off traffic for many of the businesses along Route 66. There are now miles and miles of abandoned diners, gas stations and other businesses along the route, Roy’s being one of them.

“Are you Roy?!?” I asked the attendant inside the cafe, eyes as wide as saucers. He smirked a little; grey t-shirt, medium wash 501s, slicked back silver hair, clear blue eyes and an easygoing smile. He gave me an incredulous smile. “No.” “I bet you get that question a lot,” I replied, laughing off my ridiculous question. We introduced ourselves — his name was Kevin.

There are ten people that live there in Amboy at any given time. Kevin is one of them. He works at Roy’s. The diner’s kitchen no longer functions and they sell nothing save for a small selection of snacks and cold drinks, a few souvenirs, and gasoline from the old pumps. The dining room and kitchen appear to be in perfect working condition, but the handwritten sign above the counter that reads “NO KITCHEN” makes it clear that it’s not. The motel is abandoned.

It’s a living relic of American history.

I was fascinated with the gas station and the man working there in the middle of nowhere. I knew I wasn’t the first person to visit this place or be smitten by its sheer existence, but I felt like I had discovered it myself and immediately claimed a tiny sense of ownership. Kevin was kind enough to field my questions and eventually offered me a root beer and found an old photo album of the town. We sat at a table in the café and went through photos — old black and white photos from when the town was more bustling — pictures of the school, the church…sepia-toned anonymous faces. He attended to the occasional gas customer, albeit a bit impatiently as he suddenly had company. We sat and talked until dusk, as I was anxious to get back to Joshua Tree before dark.

I ended up spending a lot of time with Kevin during that week in Joshua Tree. He showed me around the old motel which he holds the key to, as well as the remaining buildings in the small town. What started as a friendly conversation turned into three days of driving around showing each other our favorite sites between Yucca Valley and Needles. He showed me some of his favorite weird sites along Route 66 - an abandoned diner, the shoe tree, the giant foo dogs, and the graffiti gas station. If you find yourself driving along Route 66 and go through Amboy, stop at Roy’s and please say hi to Kevin for me.