Day 2: The Bandits of the Vasquez Rocks

Leaving Los Angeles, Alvin explained about a dam that was built just north of here at the San Francisquito pass. The grade on the highway north and east from Los Angeles is barely noticeable.

But in 44 miles we were at 4,000 feet. The rain turned to sleet and Alvin turned to the subject of Mulholland, the famous superintendent of the city of Los Angeles' water company.

Mulholland wouldn't have garnered so much fame were it not for this grade. It's downhill most of the way from the central Californian lakes of the Owens Valley. Los Angeles County took it from there, and purged the Owens Valley into a giant aqueduct headed for Los Angeles. "One of those dams broke north of here," Alvin said, "and all these people and houses.everything got washed out."

"Anybody die?" I asked.

"They ended up in the Pacific," Alvin said.

Sometimes, the awfulness of a town's name seems to define its contents. I had once passed through a town called Earlimart. I felt like I was at the corporate luncheon of a poorly run competitor of Walmart or Ben Franklin.

Acton wasn't much better. We stopped at a damp-smelling bar called The Outpost. Ten or twelve people and four cowboy hats. They were chatting about football and the prices of things. "I'll take a Coke," I said, and the waitress told me it was a rip-off and that I'd be better off buying the Coke down the street. A pair of horses drew up to the bar. Their owners wore cowboy hats. It was time to leave. And the Coke didn't cost that much.

We left Acton for the small town of Agua Dulce, which could have been a nice place with its haciendas and red-tiled roofs and well-manicured cactus gardens. But the desert is raw, and this - the high desert - is brown and plain. Wire-fences and cinder blocks and tireless trucks stand out when there's little vegetation to hide it all. It was a mess. We came to Agua Dulce to 'take a look around' at the geologic strangeness and the famous Vasquez Rocks, where William Shatner threw styrofoam rocks at the Gorn, Blazing Saddles' was filmed, and Hollywood gunslingers shot at Indians.

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