Mojave Road School Bus

Mojave Road Attraction Mile 37

This bullet-riddled heap of rusted metal was abandoned some time around 1984 along the old Mojave Road, within what was later to become the Mojave National Preserve. The old school bus became a quirky roadside attraction, developing its own cult-like following of countless travelers of the Mojave Road, which extends 133 miles east from the Colorado River to Camp Cady.

Mojave Road Bus

It had been located near the Mojave Road 37 mile mark. The bus was removed from the Mojave Road by the Mojave Desert Land Trust (MDLT) on February 18, 2018, when the land was given to the Mojave National Preserve, and it sat in their parking lot in the community of Joshua Tree until Wednesday April 10, 2019 when the Mojave Desert Heritage & Cultural Association Center in Goffs, California had the bus transported back to the East Mojave desert, closer to its original home in the Lanfair Valley.

The Mojave Road lets you explore the route used by pioneers on their way to California. Your SUV acts as a kind of time machine, transporting you on a trail that stretches for 138 miles through country virtually unchanged since prehistoric times. Many travelers on the trail enjoyed stops to view the old bus. The Mojave Road Guide, written by Dennis Casebier, is the official guide to the road.

The bus originally showed up on the road in the early 1980s -- no one is sure how or why it was left out there. It has been shot up, rolled over and righted several times. Someone rolled it on its side in 2014, but others later that year set it back upright.

Here are some videos of the bus at its new location in Goffs, California, and a video of it being flipped back upright in 2014.

Video at Goffs, CA