Charles Darwin, after his visit to the Patagonian Desert of South America in the last century, was puzzled by his degree of fascination with it.

I find that the plains of Patagonia frequently cross before my eyes … They can be described only by negative possessions; without habitations, without water, without trees … they support merely a few dwarf plants. Why then … have these arid wastes taken so firm possession of my mind.

The following text summarizes some of the historical mis-characterizations of desert environments.

The desert is evil. It is deadly and barren and lonely and foreboding and oppressive and godforsaken. Its silence and emptiness breed madness. Its plant forms are strangely twisted, as are its citizens, who live there because they cannot get along anywhere else. Charlie Manson. Brigham Young. Bugsy Siegel. Carlos Castañeda and Don Juan's demons. Moses. In history and myth, the desert is the barrier to the Promised Land – our realm of trial and exile, the place where people go to be punished, seeking wisdom born of misery. Since modern transportation has compromised this relationship, reducing the desert's danger by abbreviating the time required to cross it, about the best thing you can say about the place is that it is boring. Aside from random deposits of minerals, it is valuable mainly as a zone in which to shed the shackles of civilization, race cars on infinitely straight highways, bask naked in unending sun, shoot guns at rocks and road signs, careen across sand hills on dirt bikes and dune buggies. […]