Calico Desert becomes available through the Community Center bundles - one of them fixes the bus.

To the bottom! And finish the vault community center bundles.

Completing the vault bundle will unlock the bus which Is how you get to the desert

Yes! No matter what time you go to the desert and no matter how you get there there will always be a bus to take you back. The only difference is I think you have to drive it instead of Pam haha

You can still take the bus back

“Who’s drivin this buuuuus?” 🤣

Funny enough, either way you just pay cash to get the bus fixed.

edit: realized maybe you were unsure about how to go about it...just go see Morris in the Joja Mart.

If you want to perform upgrades through Joja, you will need to buy the Joja Community Development Form through Morris, which unlocks the ability to buy the upgrades for the greenhouse, the desert bus, etc. However, if you buy the Development Form, Joja will turn the community center into a warehouse, which destroys the community center bundles and you can no longer fix the community center or help the Juminos.

If you were originally fixing up the community center, I would suggest you stick with that instead of switching to the Joja route. To fix the bus via community center, you need to finish the Vault room.

Fixing the bus through the community center is actually cheaper than fixing it through Joja. All the bundles in the Vault room cost a total of 42,500g, plus you get some pretty nice rewards for each additional bundle. If you fix it through Joja, you have to pay 5000g to unlock the Development Form (destroying the community center) and then pay 40,000g for the bus repair, for a total of 45,000g.

You need to reach floor 120 of the Village mine, and then you will get the key you need.

Yes it is, but that key unlocks the Skull Cavern, which is basically the mines in the desert which are endless

You may wanna consider the skull cavern elevator mod when you do get the key.

My 8th and 9th year I began being more serious like mining till I am exhausted or fish because I really wanted to go to the calico desert now I have the calico desert and I just relax more .. when I wasn’t married I was giving Sam his favourite food Everytime I could I would, talk to him till I got all the hearts and married him now he helps me sometimes in the farm . I got chickens and cows . So I actually got a pretty relaxed stardew valley life but I am trying to be more serious like not spending money or it’s work more ..

True yeah im addicted to resetting lol. I just love the feeling of being in the new valley and starting fresh

I mine farm fishing and of course more but my first 3 years I was doing not much bc I rlly didn’t know what to do but now I love this game so much . Sometimes I do the dumbest thing ever and that is skipping days bc I sometimes rlly don’t know what to do in the day, if you know what I can do during the day you can always give me advice I am not best in stardew valley !

And I thought I liked to take my time with the game.

Year TEN?? Wow my oldest farm is only year 7!

It's the end of the village mine at 120.

NO SHAME! IT HAPPENS! stardew is ALL ABOUT taking your time and going at your pace. Enjoy the game, its great! to get into the skull cavern i believe you just have to reach the bottom of the normal mines, which is level 120. good luck!!

To fix the vault, you would need a total of 42,500g. If you’re asking where the vault is, it’s down the right hallway in the community center.

You need a lot of money

You can also do this through JojaMart, though I recommend the Community Center for a first playthrough as it will help guide and teach you some game elements.

By completing a box in the community center. ��

You need to complete the bundle of the safe room in the comunity center, which mostly consists in paying gold to unlock it.

You need to repair the community center.

Sometimes you need to do some packages in the community center first, before you can unlock more bundle options in the other rooms in the community center.

If you did not do any package yet, maybe that's the reason why you can't see the bundle for the Bus in the community enter yet.

Unless you’ve already got a prismatic shard there’s no reason to rush to the desert. Rabbits and pigs are more important.

There are coconuts and catusfruits which you can sell or turn into jam, also buying starfruit seeds is quite profitable if you buy a few, let them grow and turn the fruits into seeds with the seedmaker

When you’ve reached the bottom of the mines

You've barely looked. Try going away from the snow biome. Biomes are coded to that hot biomes are close together (as well as wet vs dry). You want hot and dry to find deserts and mesas and savannahs.

Have been on the same cactus hunt before and yes if I don't get it offered by a wandering trader I usually look for and igloo. It really irks me that you cannot mix blue and yellow to make green. Like even my 5 year old tells me it should be the case.

Use chunkbase to find a desert

You were almost there. I think you turned around right before you reached it.

There is a cactus in a pot that spawns in the secret labs under igloos. Look for igloos.