Big Things in the Desert

We all know our deserts here in California are big. They cover huge areas of our state. And in this episode of "California's Gold," producer/host Huell Howser travels to the desert in search of big things -- and finds them! First, he travels to the Palms Springs area to visit one of six major wind farms in the world. Over 4,000 giant windmills are here -- some almost two hundred feet tall -- making clean, pollution-free energy representing the future of energy production.

Next, Huell travels to the little town of Boron to see a big hole and a big truck. The big hole is the open pit mine where about 50 percent of the world's borax comes from. To get the borax out of that huge open pit, there are trucks so big you won't believe them even when you're seeing them! They're two stories high, wide as a two-car garage, longer than a city bus and weigh as much as one hundred and eleven mid-size cars. Finally, Huell travels to the remote Goldstone area of the Mojave desert to visit the largest and most sensitive scientific telecommunications systems in the world -- The Deep Space Network. Huell and cameraman Luis Fuerte find out just how big when they're given the opportunity to climb inside one of the dishes and walk around. All in all, it's a big adventure in a big desert -- an adventure where we discover some big pieces of "California's Gold."