It’s the detours in life that make getting there so much fun, which is exactly what happened when we drove east out of Palm Springs and made the spontaneous decision to turn left toward the Salton Sea ...

Ms. Lowe is the author of, most recently, “Breathing Fire: Female Inmate Firefighters on the Front Lines of California’s Wildfires.” Mr. Albrecht is a photographer based in Oakland, Calif. March 29, ...