Ace Jackalope from the lope blog took a trip in August on Route 66 through the Mojave Desert towns of Essex and Amboy.
The photographs alone make it worth visiting the site. But Ace also added some history to it as well, including the horrifically bad idea in the 1960s of nuking the mountains in the area so that highway engineers could eventually shorten Route 66. Fortunately, smarter heads prevailed.
Ace also has posts on his visits to Needles, Goffs and the Colorado River.