One thing Baker is home to is an internet legend. One of those "Funny Signs!" pictures that's circulated its way through chain mails and internet forums. Zzyzx road. lol.
I had passed the road and the famous sign on the interstate plenty of times, but this time was different. I had it all figured out. After I finished my sandwich, I was determined to find out...
The Secret of Zzyzx Road!
I approached the famous boulevard and considered foregoing the excursion. It was, after all, in the middle of the damn desert. Gulping away my insecurities, I pressed on, flipped on my right-hand turn signal, and exited the interstate. I was met with warnings:
DO NOT ENTER. WRONG WAY. ONE WAY. No return. My fate had been sealed. There was no turning back. I turned right.
Damn. Bad luck. Or was it the looming fingers of fate stretching towards its victim? A dead end was all I found to the right. Flipping around, I plowed on.
A bridge had been constructed to cross the interstate. I wondered if it was safe to venture over. I had no choice. I plodded on.
Successfully crossing the bridge and turning due east, I was met with a ribbon of pavement in disrepair. Who knows when Zzyzx had last claimed a victim? What horrors were witnessed on this small strip of road? Who had previously met their end in this wasteland? I shook off my nervous daydreaming and pressed my foot to the gas.
Curses! Following the road's devilish curves, and facing due south, my last semblance of hope, the pavement, dropped out from beneath me. Dirt...
I plodded on carefully. The gravel road seemed to be made out of speed bumps that had been broken down into smaller speed bumps and then constructed into a road. For about a mile only desert and rock met my gaze, but what's this? a spike of green? An oasis?
No, not an oasis, but an old, dying oasis. A dry lake bed. The road mockingly curved left and right, etching its path past mountains and south towards my destiny.
More curves. More teasing plants. More vicious gravel nipping at my Camry's heels like small rabid dogs when suddenly, a sign of man's intervention. Palm trees appear in the distance...
...as well as along the road. Palms of this type don't simply grow here naturally... Someone planted these. These three stood as sentinels as if guarding the way to something bold and powerful.
More palms stand as stonehenges-- nay, PALMhenges along the way. I was nearing my goal... I could feel it...
...and then at once, a halt. A barrier between me and my goal. The gate that might as well be to me as the Berlin Wall. An iron gate of mocking failure. I do not give up so easily, however.
California State Desert Studies Center? I doubt that... There's something else going on here. Something more.
Pulling off to the side into a parking area, I disembarked on foot and captured parts of this "Studies Center"...
2-lane avenues with landscaped medians? Even though they are far gone in disrepair, it still seems a bit fancy to me for a mere desert studies center. What's on that plaque?
Intriguing. This is a place of great, amazing, interesting historical things and happenings.
Soda Springs indeed. A ranch house overlooks a spring while a building of unknown use sits seemingly empty to the right.
Desert Studies Center? That's what's at the end of Zzyzx Road now, but that's not what it has always been. It's no moon. It's a space station. And by "space station" I of course mean a Christian fundamentalist Health Spa:
