Day 9, Part 2: Sunday, April 30th, 2006
Ontario, California to Beatty, Nevada
The second destination of the day is a giant boulder, out in the middle of the Mojave Desert. In order to get there, I have to go through the unappealing high desert towns of Palmdale and Victorville, via the Pearblossom Highway--route 138. Along the way, I am treated to a rare view of the backside of Mt. Baldy, still covered with gleaming white snow.
It takes a long time to get across the Mojave. On my way there, I wind up somehow buying an In-n-Out t-shirt and seeing more Joshua Trees, boulders and cars than I ever could have imagined existed in this part of the world. I finally pull into the dusty town of Landers and stop for awhile to look at a thing called the Integratron.
As the sign explains, this structure was built by some nutcase who used to live out in the desert under what is supposedly the world's largest free-standing boulder. I watched a show on TV about him once, many years ago--he claimed to have been visited by aliens one night, who explained to him how to rejuvenate living tissue by means of a structure he called the "Integratron". He devoted the rest of his life to building it.
After I watched that show, I was far more fascinated by the idea of living out in the middle of nowhere, underneath a giant boulder, than I was by the possibility of rejuvenating living tissue. So what I really want to see--now that I've come all this way--is that rock. But I see no sign of it anywhere.
Disappointed, I decide to give up my search and move on to destination number three for the day. I head down the gravel driveway next to the Integratron in order to turn around but happen to see a sign pointing down a dirt road, labeled "Giant Rock", at the end of the driveway. I figure that this is what I've been looking for, and so I turn down the road to see what it has to offer.
A couple of sun-soaked Joshua Trees are out there in the emptiness, happy to be alive.
An adventurous twenty minutes later, the road finally tops out near a pile of granite rocks. A couple of joyriders on ATVs buzz past me as I finally get my first view of the giant boulder.
It definitely is big.
An internet search had already informed me that the boulder had split in two a couple of years ago, after a group of hippies living underneath it had lit one fire too many under its belly. A group of similar people is out there when I arrive, talking in the shadow of the splintered rock about "getting their energy into the right space." I ignore them as I walk around, taking pictures.
The giant boulder itself is just a remnant that has happened to have split off from the larger pile of rocks right next to it.
