Chasing Comets

A perfect Palm Springs road trip in the Rolls-Royce Cullinan Black Badge

- By Nicolas Stecher

It was time to get the hell outta Dodge. Like almost every hu-man in the known universe we’d just spent the last few months staring at the same four walls, and our minds were beginning to play tricks on us. Like that trash compactor scene in Star Wars, the room was starting to squeeze in, tightening every day. One thought kept boomeranging back to mind: road trip. That classic American rite of passage, the treasured summer excursion of jumping in your favorite vehicle, stretching your legs and throttle foot, and discovering what the world has to offer. And seeing as Rolls Royce—arguably the most esteemed luxury marque the world has ever known—volunteered a Cullinan Black Badge for adventure, our steed for this voyage was obvious.

The three-ton steel, leather and carbon fiber totem of affluence is aptly named after the largest diamond ever discovered. Only one question remained: where to? This is where cosmic fate stepped in, in the form of a visiting small Solar System body called Neowise. The brightest comet to pass by Earth in almost 25 years, Neowise was the rare SSSB that could be seen by the naked eye—the first since Hale-Bopp in 1995.

So we booked an architectural gem near Palm Springs to call home base, loaded up the Cullinan Black Badge with gear, and vowed to locate the darkest corner of desert we could find in nearby Joshua Tree for some comet spotting. Part #roadtrip, part luxury Palm Springs weekend getaway, part off-road hillbilly adventure; the Cullinan called.