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in sparkling blue. After we checked into our rooms and each grabbed a wel-
come shower, we headed to the dining room for a feast of grilled mahi-mahi
and wagyu rib-eye. “This place is expensive, but I really don’t mind,” I said,
savoring another bite of smoked Gouda polenta cake.
“I know you don’t,” Case said. “’Cause I’m paying.”
After dinner we took a swim—the water is always 87 degrees—then
enjoyed a few beers by the poolside fireplace. Case looked up at the stars.
“Not what I expected when I said, ‘Let’s go four-wheeling,’ but that’s OK by me.”
I took care of that missing component the next morning. Starting early,
we crossed into the Panamint Range, eventually shifting into four high and
reaching Goler Wash Road. It’s more “wash” than “road,” mostly a rocky cut
through the mountains, but the 4Runner handled the worst of it with ease.
Finally we pulled up to a small cluster of stone and cement ruins. “This is
Barker Ranch,” I said to Case as we climbed out and headed to the main
structure. “In 1969, the local sheriff ’s department captured Charles Manson
here. This is where he’d holed up with his ‘family’ after the Tate and LaBianca
murders. Word is the cops found him hiding under the kitchen sink.”
The ranch had been largely intact when I’d first visited the place ages
ago—even had cans of food on the shelves and a guest book full of whacked-
out inscriptions—but a 2010 fire wrecked most of it. “Just as well,” Case
said. “I don’t need to see where Charlie Manson didn’t take any showers.”
We crawled out of the west side of the Panamints and headed north to
Ballarat, another abandoned “town.” A scene in “Easy Rider” was filmed here,
and you can still find the rusted green pickup of Tex Watson, the lead practi-
tioner in Manson’s murder cult. From there, we made a long slog southeast,
detouring onto Highway 14 before arriving at Mojave Air & Space Port. “This
is where aviation pioneer Burt Rutan built the Voyager, the first airplane to fly
around the world nonstop,” I said, “and where
his SpaceShipOne completed the world’s first
privately funded human space flight.”
We motored around the airfield, passing
by the huge boneyard of dry-stored airliners,
a few odd-looking experimental airships, and
the National Test Pilot School—the world’s
busiest. Finally, I had Case pull up alongside
a truly colossal hangar. “Inside that place is
the Stratolaunch, the world’s largest airplane.
One day, it’ll start carrying rockets to altitude
that’ll then be launched into space.”
“Cool! Can we see it?”
“No. But the Voyager Restaurant in the
terminal has a pretty decent club sandwich.”
The light fading, Case pointed his trusty
4Runner south toward L.A. “Pretty cool coupla
days, Art,” he said. “I’m always amazed at the
weird stuff you find.”
“Oh, we’ve only just started. I mean, you
haven’t seen the Mojave Megaphone or ... the
Racetrack.”
“What are those?”
“One is a giant megaphone bolted to two
boulders in the middle of the desert and no
one knows why, and the other is a dry lake
bed with rocks that move. By themselves.” AM