It’s definitely a huge change from when we first started coming out here 10 years ago.” by Anonymous “Two of our favorite restaurants out here, La Copine and Frontier Cafe, are both queer-owned. “We’ve met so many queer folks since we’ve moved to the desert, including the owners of the Station, The Beauty Bubble, Geode and Gypsum and Joshua Tree Blanket Company,” says Williamson, 36, who wrote and starred in the Silver Lake-based gay soap opera “EastSiders,” in which Halbach, 42, co-starred and co-executive produced. The couple, who were married at Keys View in Joshua Tree National Park in 2015, have also learned that the desert can be a welcoming environment. “We haven’t seen any tarantulas, rattlesnakes or blood-sucking insects yet, but we know they are out there.” “It’s like ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ out here sometimes,” Halbach says of the desert’s ferocious winds. “I’m thinking about writing a horror movie about it.” “Every once in a while, nature serves to remind you that the desert is trying to kill you,” Williamson says. pad for a Joshua Tree homestead - and a growing gay communityĪfter living in Yucca Valley, just north of Joshua Tree National Park, for more than a year, former Angelenos Kit Williamson and John Halbach have learned some hard lessons about the high desert.
