{"id":320030,"date":"2026-05-17T13:54:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T13:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/320030\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T13:54:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T13:54:11","slug":"cars-keep-getting-stuck-at-californias-end-of-the-world-sign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/320030\/","title":{"rendered":"Cars keep getting stuck at California’s End of the World sign"},"content":{"rendered":"

A mere 20 miles from Joshua Tree National Park<\/a> and its twisty namesake trees, deep in the high desert<\/a>, a strange sight holds a message that\u2019s by turns apocalyptic and poignant: A series of huge letters spells out \u201cThe End of the World.\u201d Surrounded solely by mountains and a funky old restaurant that\u2019s open only on weekends, this huge wooden sign sits just off barren Amboy Road, a local route out to the namesake Amboy Crater volcano<\/a>. The site north of Twentynine Palms attracts wanderers seeking to bask in the solitary expanse of this ecological jewel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lately, though, the place has been feeling a bit more rugged than usual. Standing 14 by 100 feet, the wooden sculpture \u2014 with a font stylized to resemble the Hollywood sign \u2014 has been battered by the elements. Several of its letters have fallen down, and others have been stripped to reveal their insides, lending the sign an even more remote feeling.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jack Pierson, the artist who created it, installed the letters there in 2022, specifically in \u201ca place known for those who drop off the edge of civilization,\u201d as he once said. Yet the End of the World sign, plunked on soft sand just off the paved road, is known colloquially for another reason: People keep getting their cars stuck out there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The site\u2019s online reviews are littered with warnings from travelers who either had to help tow someone out by the sign or had to call for assistance to wrest their own vehicles from the dirt.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sand looks innocent until it grabs your wheels and laughs while you sink like a sad desert submarine,\u201d cautioned one person via Google Maps. \u201cMy car got stuck. Badly. Don\u2019t repeat my life choices.\u201d Another described the sand as deceptively deep, capable of swallowing even cars with four-wheel drive \u201cjust like a sand worm eating lunch on the planet of the dune,\u201d they wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Visitors noted that their cars had gotten stuck after they drove up toward the sign. One visitor wrote on the\u00a0Roadside America forum<\/a> that after driving up to the sign, they \u201chad to be towed out, as did two others while we were there. The tow cost $200 for them to come out and then $200 to go back to their shop. And AAA does not cover this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alexis Kimball, a local who works with area towing company Wind \u2019N Sea, says that they\u2019ve received calls in the past from people whose cars got stuck out by the End of the World sign. But that\u2019s common in the region, particularly with softer sand, and not just relegated to the site where the sign stands.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf your truck or your rig is too heavy or the wheels aren\u2019t right, or if you don\u2019t have four-wheel drive or all-wheel drive, you can get stuck in the softer sand,\u201d she says. It\u2019s especially common after it rains in the region.<\/p>\n

For those venturing out to the sculpture in their car, a word of caution: Park closer to the highway and make your way up to see the sign on foot. Otherwise, catching a glimpse of the End of the World might come at the expense of a steep towing bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mere 20 miles from Joshua Tree National Park and its twisty namesake trees, deep in the high…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,2008,2009],"class_list":["post-320030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-sfgla","tag-sfglaculture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}