Girls Trip: Pioneertown, CA

Taking a break from Joshua Tree National Park, Melissa and I made our way to Pioneertown, CA. Before heading out, we stopped for breakfast and picked up some sausage, egg, and cheddar vegetarian sandwiches, and lattes from Frontier Cafe in Yucca Valley. Once full, we drove up Pioneertown Road for about 10 minutes. The drive was scenic as we drove through mountains. Once we arrived, the place looked like an old western town fit for cowboys. We explored the area walking on dirt roads and checked out historic looking buildings. It felt like we were on a movie set.

We noticed things were scaled smaller on this set, likely to make the cowboy actors look bigger on screen.

Luckily, the place was fairly empty during our visit. This made me feel a bit more comfortable as we were in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic. 

Tell me why I thought this was the real O.K Corral and then the following weekend I realized I was wrong as the O.K. Corral was down in Tombstone, AZ. 😂

The buildings looked so cool and transported us back to another time period. I felt like I was on the set of Back to the Future III, where Doc and Marty traveled back to the old western era. 

I ended up taking a similar picture while in Cyanide Springs Ghost Town in Arizona the following week. 

What I learned while in Pioneertown (sign transcribed): 

"Pioneertown was founded in 1946 by a group of Hollywood personalities led by cowboy actors Dick Curtis and Russell Hayden as a permanent 1880s town for filming western movies. On Sept. 1, 1946, Roy Rogers broke ground for the first buildings, assisted by the sons of the pioneers from whom the town takes its name. Over 200 movies and TV serials were filmed here, as were an unknown number of background shots for other productions, TV westerns, including the Gene Autry Show, Cisco Kid, Annie Oakley, and Adventures of Judge Roy Bean were filmed here. Pioneer Bowl, Hayden Ranch and Mane Street have been designated by the State Department of Parks and Recreation as historical resources. Today, Mane Street still retains its old west image. The Pioneertown post office is said to be the most photographed post office in the entire United States."

Overall, this location was so cool to see but we had to rush back to our Airbnb as our host mistakenly thought we were supposed to check out, although we booked an extra day. I was rushing us back to the Airbnb because we thought the cleaning crew was going to be there, while our stuff was still in the rental. Luckily, as soon as we reached Yucca Valley, our host realized he made a mistake so we finally calmed down and headed towards Joshua Tree National Park for our second visit during our trip.