Indian Wells Valley is an arid north-south basin in east-central California. In the geologic sense, it is a southern extension of Owens Valley to the north, with the recent volcanics of the Coso Range being the separator. It is defined by two major faults on both the east and west side of the valley, but unlike Owens Valley, it is bound by a third fault, the Garlock Fault (within the El Paso Mountains) to the south. This valley is part of the northwesternmost Mojave Desert plant community and ecoregion.
The largest city in the valley is Ridgecrest. Other locations include Inyokern, Indian Wells, and communities associated with the China Lake Naval Weapons Center, the primary industry in the valley. California State Route 14 and US Highway 395 are the main transportation corridors through the valley.
Famous quotes containing the words indian, wells and/or valley:
“There is no difference between the client and the prostitute. If a man goes to a prostitute, he is also a prostitute.”
—Sister Michele, Indian nun. As quoted in the New York Times Magazine, p. 35 (January 16, 1994)
“‘But where can we draw water,’
Said Pearse to Connolly,
‘When all the wells are parched away?
O plain as plain can be
There’s nothing but our own red blood
Can make a right Rose Tree.’”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Ah! I have penetrated to those meadows on the morning of many a first spring day, jumping from hummock to hummock, from willow root to willow root, when the wild river valley and the woods were bathed in so pure and bright a light as would have waked the dead, if they had been slumbering in their graves, as some suppose. There needs no stronger proof of immortality. All things must live in such a light. O Death, where was thy sting? O Grave, where was thy victory, then?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)