narrator: in la, drivers spend an average of 62 hours a year sitting in traffic. the price to experience the fast pace of city life. but less than a 2 hours drive east of the city, is a place that moves at its own pace.

now, this is living. [upbeat music] (singing): gonna give up and beat my, b-beat my. [music playing] narrator: coachella valley offers visitors both unbridled peace and limitless excitement. whether you're looking to catch some sun out by the pool, experience the local community and agriculture, or seek adventure in some of the most unforgettable places, johnny devenanzio: woo-hoo! narrator: this california gem is a wanderluster's dream. unmistakenly marking your arrival into the coachella valley, colossal wind turbines, sprawling across over 5000 acres of land. every time i pass through this windmill farm, i'm always fascinated by the way it looks.

it almost feels like you're on another planet. it definitely has kind of a wild wild west feel. narrator: and palm springs windmill tours offers excursions through this alabaster forest, helping educate visitors on the future of wind energy. now, what's unique about the topography here that makes this such an ideal location for a wind turbine farm? annete said: in california, we have very few farms because we're mountainous, but this particular area is one of the most consistently windy places in the united states because the cold air comes from the west right through those mountains and mixes in with the hot air of the desert. we can get up to 120 miles an hour of wind here. 120 miles an hour? it can be, yeah. watching this thing spin, i mean, it's mesmerizing. rich weirderman: that windmill in front of us here produces enough power for 850 homes for a full year. johnny devenanzio: oh, my god. rich weirderman: the windmill itself is the height of the statue of liberty. johnny devenanzio: you know what's crazy is from the highway when you're driving by these things,

you just don't get a feel for how massive these things are. and then each one of those blades, how long are the blades? rich weirderman: the blades on these here are about 112 feet long. what? rich weirderman: it's like balancing a school bus on a straw. johnny devenanzio: wow. [music playing] there's been a focus on renewable energy since the 70s, but now companies large and small, even luxury brands like bentley are now reducing their carbon footprint. why do you think this push has taken place? because it's the right thing to do. it's the most economical thing to do in a lot of cases. annete said: wind energy is the most contributed renewable energy source to the grid today and the cheapest. it's a little bit cheaper than solar. johnny devenanzio: wow. there was a big backlash 40 years ago because a lot of people felt that it was intrusive and it-- and they didn't like-- - intrusive how? you can barely see these things. annete said: but they do paint them white to alert birds. johnny devenanzio: flyers. for the birds. i still think, though, instead of painting them white, if you want to scare birds away, you should paint them to look like cats. that's probably one of the best ideas i've heard so far.

not just a pretty face. [music playing] narrator: past the windmill farms, it's only a quick drive to the city of palm springs. once a top destination for classic hollywood movie stars, palm springs natural hot springs, hotels, sunny weather, and nightlife, brings in people from all over the world looking to have a little fun. johnny devenanzio: all right, ready? ooh. nice. you got it. oh! oh, my god. nice. oh! woo! narrator: and that fun can come in the form of a paddle, a ball with holes, playing a game that sounds more like an appetizer than professional sport. what is pickleball? what are the rules? we're not playing with pickles, are we? athena troullot: no. i think it was named after a dog who liked to chase a wiffle ball that had holes like this, and it's actually a combination of tennis, badminton, and table tennis. [music playing]

this area that we're in right now is called the kitchen. you cannot hit the ball without letting it bounce if you're in the kitchen or touching any of the three lines that are around the kitchen. oh, johnny. oh, [bleep]. i'm sorry. i thought i was playing tennis. that is called a fault. then another important thing for you to know is the serve's underhand. ready. i'm not-- i'm not going to go easy on you this time. so you're currently a pro? yeah, i'm currently rank one in singles, three in-- one? hey, keep it up. thank you. it must feel amazing to be the best in the world at a sport. cathrine parenteau: yeah, there are no words to describe it. like, for example, indian wells, as a kid, you know, i used to just sit in front of the tv and watch novak djokovic play here on the tennis courts, and now i get to play here on the pickleball courts, which is pretty amazing. what do you call this move, right here? in between the leg shot. in between the legs. yeah. ooh, long!

oh! i understand why this game has taken off the way that it has. cathrine parenteau: you just have to make sure that you drink plenty of fluid. a lot of margaritas. [laughter] [grunting] we never imagined where we would be right now. i mean, we literally make a living teaching and playing pickleball, and it's amazing. so we're really grateful to be able to do what we do. ah! athena troullot: nice one. great rally.

[music playing] [crickets chirping] seth zaharias: feeling like your loose, ready to do some climbing? - yeah, i'm loosening up, man. past the warm up. seth zaharias: is this the warm up? see if you can get your wrists moving a little more. johnny devenanzio: ok. seth zaharias: looking good, man. [music playing] narrator: covering over 1200 square miles of widerness, joshua tree is california's second biggest national park. and though many visitors come to see the twisting yucca plants that give the area its namesake, most of the park is wild and undiscovered by tourists,

making it a can't-miss destination for climbers around the world. johnny devenanzio: not a bad place to call your office here, seth. oh, dude, i'm so grateful, man. it's just unbelievable that i got to spend the bulk of my life out here. [music playing] johnny devenanzio: where did your passion from climbing come from? is this something you've done in your entire life? yeah, man. i was born to do this. i first got introduced to climbing in 1989 and that was like way extreme sport back then. and josh tree is an international climbing destination. there's 10,000 different routes here, so even an old schooler like me, every day i go climbing, i could do something new and never have to repeat the same route. [music playing] johnny devenanzio: what am i going to be doing today at josh? today, we're climbing at a place called caprock because it's just got a real mix of beginner friendly climbs to really butt kicker climbs, man. so we're going to kind of run you through a little progression. you had me at butt kicker. seth zaharias: we're doing a lot of what's called smearing. i'm looking for any sort of a small feature, irregularity on the rock, and i'm not putting my toe on, it i'm putting the ball of my foot over it. got it. and this hip shift is what it's all about. johnny devenanzio: i mean, this is almost like a form of,

like, dancing on a rock. very much a dance. it's an art. yeah, baby. - woo! we gonna do this on a rope? tie me up, buttercup. [music playing] seth zaharias: what looks like the line to you? right up this crack here. yeah, absolutely. you can see on the left and right of the crack a bunch of different little positive edges, but the negative space of the crack we can actually use as well. on belay! seth zaharias: belay's on, sir. [music playing] (singing): i've been around, but i've never had mine. seth zaharias: twist your wrist to the outside. feel how powerful that is? that's called a finger lock, and that's a really positive hold. [music playing] (singing) a driven thing. johnny devenanzio: and by using leverage and pressure, you're relieving your reliance on just your grip and muscles. you're conserving your power for when you need it. [music playing] - (singing): it's already here. how's this shot right here, seth? awesome. that's it. you're like a natural. johnny devenanzio: woo! yeah, baby. well earned, well earned. way to work those feet up. that's great, man. - woo! you did it! you're beautiful, joshua tree. [music playing]

johnny devenanzio: this really does help you connect with the features and the landscape here and almost, i mean, feel, like, the living history in these rocks. yeah, summit! woo! yeah, baby. johnny devenanzio: what's so magical about this place is how just vast and expansive it is and how small you feel when you're in the center of it. it's almost like mother nature created the greatest playground, right? seth zaharias: exactly, man, and joshua tree has the best community of any place i've ever been in my life. this town is a mix of the freakiest people on the planet. whether you are a rock climber, you are a musician, you're an artist, you are welcome here. and the talent pool per capita in this town is off the charts. so there's something for everyone here? there's something for everybody here. narrator: and somewhere for everyone to stay, to make the most of what this unique landscape has to offer. johnny devenanzio: oh, you got a pool out here. narrator: originally a jousting facility. that would've been cool if you guys kept that. it'd be like medieval times.

narrator: the castle house estates is one such campground that doesn't shy away from what makes joshua tree great. johnny devenanzio: so these must be the castles that your establishment is named after, huh? - yes. they're a three story bungalow. you can stay in there, hang out, sleep up on the roof. johnny devenanzio: nice, man. ryan allen carrillo: my husband, luke and i, when we first saw the property it was as rundown as you could imagine, and he just had this vision that was pretty crazy and got me on board. and it's been going forward ever since. it's all about the sunrise, the sunset up here. johnny devenanzio: mm-hmm. it really is. ryan allen carrillo: you know, the tower is actually designed for when the wind comes. you could actually lay up here and chill and like, the cold air doesn't hit you at all. i mean, talk about a room with a view. yeah, it's pretty wild, right? [music playing] we have five yurt's. ok. they're like 16 foot giant canvas tents that glamping is sort of known for. ooh, this is cozy. our most popular season is the wintertime. people love to come out here, get cold, get all cozy with the blankets, and have a fire outside. you've got most of the creature comforts from home,

but just dialed back a little bit and out in the middle of the desert. and i hate to, like, be like that person, but it's so instagrammable. you know what i mean? it totally is. what is your ultimate vision for what you want castle house to become? i think we'd like to just be done with construction and sort of just, like, live. because the other thing is we just had triplets, so. what? during covid of march, we had three boys. they're like the cutest things ever. you're going to have your hands full, my friend. they're going to be some rambunctious little rugrats, so they're going to have plenty of space to run around. ryan allen carrillo: that really fuels our motivation for getting a lot of this stuff done. we're doing all this for them. yeah. that's amazing, man. this, to me, is like heaven. yeah. thank you so much. johnny devenanzio: it really gives you a perspective of how special this place is.

[music playing] [music playing]

when you hear of the coachella valley, what comes to mind is the music festival, joshua tree national park, palm springs, but there is a thriving farming and agriculture community here, is there not? absolutely. i mean, 95% of the dates grown in the united states are grown right here in the coachella valley. we're sunshine, movie stars, palm trees. grab it towards the top and give it a really, really hard shake. there it is. johnny devenanzio: the money producing palm trees. yeah. money does grow on trees. you know, our cows know when we have newbies up in the tree and they know that a lot of the fruit ends up on the ground. johnny devenanzio: did i drop a few? you dropped a few. [laughing] narrator: for over 30 years the aziz family has been harvesting the coachella valley's finest dates. woo! narrator: fertilized, picked, and sorted by hand, it's a labor of love mark inherited from his father. this variety is called brown barhi. it's got, like, caramel. - oh, wow. right?

that does taste like caramel. mark tadros: a little bit of brown butter even. johnny devenanzio: yeah. they're great right off the tree. mark tadros: yeah. johnny devenanzio: just like this. oh! mark tadros: there it is. johnny devenanzio: there we go. mark tadros: the packing process is done also by hand. [music playing] spray a little bit of water on them. johnny devenanzio: ok. and then they end up on our shaker. they go through some towels just to get polished before we end up on the hard part, which is the sorting line. johnny devenanzio: fancy? [speaking spanish] there's not a big process going from picking to packing. - just a quick polish. - got it. straight into the box, straight to the costumer. johnny devenanzio: all right. [speaking spanish] [music playing] [speaking spanish] narrator: the aziz family dates are so delicious that mark decided to think outside the box, and combine his produce with the bounty of the area, and create the coachella valley harvest box. tony marchese: blend up whatever we get every week from all different farmers in the coachella valley.

johnny devenanzio: so this box right here in front of me is exactly what my shopping cart at the grocery store would look like. i mean, look at this, man. wow. next to pulling it out of your own backyard. i mean, that's as close as you can get. that's really part of the success of the cv harvest box is that you're literally getting it on your countertops within 24 hours out of the dirt. [music playing] mark tadros: and the cool thing is, is even though i just grow dates, i grow some really neat varieties. and we can put that in that cv harvest box, get it directly to consumers, and then they'll start to talk about it because you can't find this in a grocery store. where did the idea for the cv harvest box come from and why? tony marchese: well, during covid, people couldn't leave their homes. we knew these farmers had all kinds of produce that they didn't want to go bad and get wasted. cv harvest was born three weeks after we started talking about it and hundreds of boxes were going out every week. one of the things that bummed me out the most during the shutdown was when i'd go in to the grocery store, couldn't find a roll of toilet paper or frozen peas to save your life, right? yeah, yeah, yeah. mark tadros: but the fresh produce was just piled up there.

and tony had a great idea and we hit the ground running. narrator: visiting old friends and local farmers, mark and tony would eventually build a family of over 100 contributors, to cv harvest box. mark tadros: and fortunately, i've got some great relationships with some local farmers. max from our mentha farms. [music playing] wow, man. tony marchese: there goes your hat. mark tadros: brian and i have known each other for a really long time. he's one of the best date farmers i know, too. johnny devenanzio: but you don't only produce dates here. you do citrus as well. well, basically, we produce citrus trees that are going to go to commercial growers. mark tadros: and then we've had citrus in the box that started there, and then went to a farmer, and then went to us. it is very symbiotic. it is something where everybody comes together, and we put our best foot forward, and we conquer our own turf. [music playing] johnny devenanzio: wow. would you look at that?

mark tadros: these dates, stuffed with blue cheese and wrapped in bacon. johnny devenanzio: yum. what do you like more, dates, or do you like halloween candy? halloween. mark tadros: oh, candy. breaking my heart, boo. johnny devenanzio: this is essentially the bounty of coachella valley laid out here in front of us. i mean, we're basically looking at cv harvest box in all of its glory, and this is what it all comes out to here. cheers to everybody here. without all of you, none of this is possible. max and his wife susanna gave us our very first vegetables for cv harvest box. tony, my wife, my kids, and pops, the founder of aziz farms. cheers. johnny devenanzio: cheers. would you say that all the contributors to the cv harvest box are an extension of your close family? tadros tadros: no doubt about it. you adopt them, they adopt you. we treat them as a family. they will take you in. [music playing]

johnny devenanzio: the greatest date i've ever had, right here. right here. [music playing] wow.

[music playing] narrator: want to feel the wind in your hair as you cruise down the lonely road to no man's land? if so, the coachella valley has just what you yearn for. except here, no man's land actually has a name.

steven caputo: east jesus is just a colloquialism for where the hell out there. jennifer nelson: charlie russell first came out here in 2006, and the reason he said he picked it was because bum [bleep] egypt wouldn't look good on a t-shirt. [laughing] narrator: a free spirit and lover of nature, charlie left his tech job and moved out to the furthest reaches of the desert to live off the land, and create the never-ending art project. johnny devenanzio: i recognize this van from the picture of charlie. jennifer nelson: when he passed in 2011, he left instructions to form a board of directors, and we've been keeping it going ever since. this one's for you charlie. all we are is dust in the wind. [music playing] jennifer nelson: east jesus is a sustainable, habitable, experimental art installation. we try to imagine a world without waste and where every action is an opportunity for self-expression. you know, if you look at our fencing over there,

you can see it's mattress springs. johnny devenanzio: you've got a pantry which is, pun intended, quite literally a pan tree. jennifer nelson: everything here has been rescued from what would be a destination in a landfill. johnny devenanzio: that's amazing. [music playing] jennifer nelson: in addition to making art, we also obviously have collectivized living. and one of the ways that you can really help us is today is vacuum day, and we'd like you to give us a hand vacuuming, east jesus style. look, ma, i'm cleaning. jennifer nelson: in general, artists and residents are expected to participate in the communal housekeep. so this is our living room. this is the communal space for everybody. at any given time, we have between six and 12 resident artists, and any number of guests from zero to 100 who are staying overnight. oh, boy. ah! yeah! steven caputo: it's like the first time you were ever on a seesaw. it's twice as tall as you were, and it still is.

follow me, guys, this way. we're going to go see walter, the sunken bus. the most popular selfie location is the tv wall by flip cassidy. is this your only window to the world? [music playing] what about east jesus has made you want to call this place home? i came out about five years ago. i just really took to mostly the community of people. jennifer nelson: coming out here having spent 10 years in hollywood and then 15 years teaching arts, it was always being a part of somebody else's larger vision. and here, i'm free to explore my own vision, and it's helped my art grow and expand in ways that i don't think would have if i never lived out here. [music playing] what's so special about the coachella valley that allows an artist collective like this to not only exist, but thrive? steven caputo: it's almost like it's a blank canvas that you can really do anything with. jennifer nelson: moreover, the coachella valley municipal

and-- i mean, governments, have done an incredible job fostering this in creative growth without overly stifling it. [music playing] johnny devenanzio: it's comprised of a lot of little pieces of art, but couldn't it be seen as just one big art piece as well? that is exactly what east jesus is. we live in the art, we cook in the art, we sleep in the art, we make art and the art that's kind of meta. the entire project is one unified whole created by thousands of artists. johnny devenanzio: i would have looked at a lot of this as discarded artifacts, where once you really look, you realize that this is one living, breathing art installation. it's a great joy to be out here. this is my favorite place in the world. [music playing] narrator: the true magic of the coachella valley lies within its landscape. it can provide the solitude to create art and fertile ground to create produce. places to harness the power of the wind

and places to go to find yourself.

george oliphant: life-changing surprises-- you didn't tell us that! george oliphant: --transformations, and reveals. [girls screaming] no! wow! george oliphant: when families and communities come together, anything is possible. this is "george to the rescue." sometimes if it's hot, it'll--