different place

I am a photo fellow at the L.A. Times, and recently spent three days photographing for the Motel California project at the Skyview Los Alamos. What immediately struck me was how tucked away in the hills the motel was, even with its close proximity to the freeway. While only two hours away from L.A., I felt like I was in a totally different place.

The motel turns 100. Explore the state’s best roadside havens — and the coolest stops along the way.

I captured the iconic yellow “Motel” sign by the pool, the turquoise Moke shuttle, and lots of unique fixtures. Having three days to photograph an assignment is rare in daily news, so I felt lucky to be able to spend more time in certain spots of the property and reshoot in different lighting situations. Good light is critical to making a good photo, so I made the most of golden hour during my visit. All of the pops of orange, yellow and teal around the property complemented warm light well. I loved that most of the plants were succulents and cactuses, giving the place a desert feel on the Central Coast. When I look at all the photos as a whole, I feel the sense of calm and warmth I experienced while I was there.

— Juliana Yamada, photography fellow

Ramsey 29 motel in Twentynine Palms. Owner Ashton Ramsey took over a motor lodge that dates to the 1940s.

(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Rocky details at the Pearl. (Megan Morello / For The Times)

Decorative brick from the Mojave Sands Motel in Joshua Tree. (David Fouts / For The Times)

The Atomic Bombshell Room at the Trixie Motel.

(David Fouts / For The Times)

Rooms 13 and 14 at the Skyview Motel.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

The Skylark Hotel sign in Palm Springs.

(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Alamo Motel sign in Los Alamos, from left. Peach Tree Inn sign in San Luis Obispo. Motel Capri sign in San Francisco. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

The Skyview Motel sign, from left. The River Lodge sign in Paso Robles. The Pacific Motel sign in Cayucos. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times; Jacob Tovar / For The Times)

The Mojave Sands Motel sign.

(David Fouts / For The Times)

The Sea & Sand Inn’s no vacancy/vacancy sign in Santa Cruz.

(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

The Surfrider Malibu as seen from the Pacific Coast Highway.

(Al Seib / For The Times)

The entrance to the Norman restaurant at the Skyview Motel.

The pool viewed through decorative pool-side furnishings at the Skyview Motel. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

Wallpaper inside the Trixie Motel.

(David Fouts / For The Times)

The toilet paper at the Hotel Wren is marked with its initials. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Folded toilet paper at the Skyview Motel. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

A view of a room inside the Ramsey 29 motel in Twentynine Palms.

(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

A detail of a patio pillow at The Pearl Hotel. (Megan Morello / For The Times)

A detail of the shower handle in a room at the River Lodge. (Jacob Tovar / For The Times)

A room inside the Crystal Pier Hotel in Pacific Beach, San Diego.

(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

The Wigwam Motel buildings in San Bernardino.

(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

A room at the Skylark Hotel.

(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

The Hotel del Sol is a boutique hotel in San Francisco aiming to rise above its roots as a budget motel.

(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

A room at Glen Oaks Hotel in Big Sur.

(Nic Coury / For The Times)

Situated on Market Street, Beck’s has a front-row seat to the main artery of San Francisco. The motel still offers free on-site parking, with a walkable location that provides ample access to public transportation, including the historic F-Market line.

(Megan Bayley / For The Times)

A decorative room at the Madonna Inn.

(Nic Coury / For The Times)

Old-school keys from the Hacienda del Sol, from left, in Borrego Springs, the Skylark Hotel in Riverside and Glen Oaks Resort Adobe Motor Lodge. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

A gathering space at the Haley Hotel in Santa Barbara.

(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

A view of an outdoor space connected to a room at the Pearl Hotel.

(Megan Morello / For The Times)

A detail of a bedroom door at the Mojave Sands Motel. (David Fouts / For The Times)

Two robes hang in a room at the Surfrider Malibu. (Al Seib / For The Times)

Happy guests at restaurant-bar Ponyboy at the Pearl Hotel in San Diego.

(Megan Morello / For The Times)

Cocktails served at the Trixie Motel in Palm Springs. (David Fouts / For The Times)

The cocktails at Ponyboy at the Pearl Hotel in San Diego. (Megan Morello / For The Times)

A guest’s dog wanders near the pool area of the Pearl in San Diego. (Megan Morello / For The Times)

A rabbit hops away at the Mojave Sands Motel in Joshua Tree. (David Fouts / For The Times)

The outdoor shower at the Skyview Motel. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

A wooden outdoor patio chair at the Mojave Sands Motel in Joshua Tree. (David Fouts / For The Times)

The Surfrider Malibu is located across Pacific Coast Highway from the Malibu Pier and Surfrider Beach, famous for its surfing, and is close to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

(Al Seib / For The Times)

A view of the pool from inside the property at the Trixie Motel in Palm Springs.

(David Fouts / For The Times)

The pool at the Skyview Motel is seen through a window at the Norman restaurant.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

Pool-side textures on the grounds of the Pearl Hotel. (Megan Morello / For The Times)

The pool steps at the Trixie Motel. (David Fouts / For The Times)

The cactus garden at the Trixie Motel.

(David Fouts / For The Times)

Five years ago, America was listening.

That was the year in which George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were killed by police officers.

That was also the year in which the Dodgers refused to take the field for a late August game to protest racial injustice in the wake of a police shooting of a 29-year-old Black man in Wisconsin.

The summer of racial reckoning, and the Dodgers’ modest role in it, feels like something from the distant past.

Cody Bellinger, Mookie Betts and Max Muncy kneeled before a game against the Giants in July 2020 to protest racial injustice.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Rather than continue to stimulate important conversations, the Dodgers are back to whistling past America’s graveyard, pretending there is nothing hypocritical about visiting President Trump one week and celebrating Jackie Robinson Day the next. Conservative Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham wanted athletes to “shut up and dribble,” and the Dodgers are doing the baseball equivalent of just that.

The opportunity for the Dodgers to regain their stature as agents of change has come and gone, their salute to Robinson on Tuesday reverting to its previous form as a cynical exercise in stealing the valor of a previous generation.

This shift in social climate was subtly pointed out by Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts earlier this month when he explained his decision to visit the Trump White House after declining to do so with the Boston Red Sox in 2019.

“At the time,” Betts told reporters, “the world was a different place.”

The world was in even more of a different place in 2020. Most of the country was in lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Major league teams played 60-game regular seasons in which no fans were allowed in stadiums.

Baseball clubhouses are traditionally white and politically conservative spaces. The pandemic didn’t change that. What changed in the Dodgers locker room was a willingness to listen.

On Aug. 23 of that year, a Black man named Jacob Blake was shot by a police officer in Kenosha, Wis., leading to demonstrations around the country. Two days later, at a protest in Kenosha, white 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse shot three people.

The Dodgers were at Oracle Park on Aug. 26 when they received word of boycotted games in the NBA, as well as Major League Baseball. The only African American player on the team knew what he had to do.

“In my shoes,” Betts said at the time, “I couldn’t play.”

Manager Dave Roberts and third base coach George Lombard also ruled themselves out.

Betts told his teammates he would support them if they played the San Francisco Giants that day. They wouldn’t hear it. They joined his protest.

Starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw said: “As a white player on this team … how can we show support? What is something we can do to help our Black brothers on this team? Once Mookie said he wasn’t going to play … we felt the best thing to do to support him was not playing.”

Dodgers starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw stood by Mookie Betts, joining his boycott of a game in 2020.

(Associated Press)

Betts was moved by the gesture.

“I’ll always remember this day,” he said. “I’ll always remember this team just having my back.”

Five years later, as Betts said, the world is a different place. Civil rights violations don’t inspire the same amount of outrage as they once did, particularly in baseball clubhouses. Trump’s casual racism has become normalized to such a degree that even former outspoken critic Snoop Dogg was convinced to perform at a pre-inauguration event.

Still the Dodgers’ lone African American player, Betts said earlier this month about his decision to join his team at the White House: “It comes with the territory, being Black in America in a situation like this. It’s a tough spot to be in.”

Tough, presumably, because he didn’t know how his teammates would react if he shared his thoughts. Tough, presumably, because he wondered if he would divide the team by taking a stand.

Reflecting on his refusal to visit Trump with the Red Sox, Betts said, “I regret that because I made it about me. This isn’t about me.”

In other words, this time around, he prioritized the well-being of his team over his personal convictions. The choice was understandable. Betts is a baseball player before he is an activist. His primary objective at this stage of his life is to win another World Series, and creating the perception of a divided team would be counterproductive to that.

Which was why Dodgers owner Mark Walter or president Stan Kasten should have stepped in and told the players they wouldn’t visit the White House, that something more important than baseball was in play. They didn’t, of course. Kasten saying the Dodgers accepted Trump’s invitation because the players wanted to is the kind of spineless buck-passing that has become standard procedure for this front office.

Walter and Kasten had the power to restart a necessary dialogue at a time when the Trump administration not only sent a brown-skinned man without a criminal record to a Salvadoran prison by mistake but also defied a Supreme Court order to facilitate his return. They didn’t. Their silence was a betrayal, both to the Dodgers and their history.