As we were driving to Barstow, we came across this solar farm with these huge mirrors facing up into the sky. Ed read about it and it is some kind of super conductor or something…he did tell me about it, but I didn’t really understand it. HA!
I was much more interested in a little town that we passed that had these awesome sculptures out in the middle of nowhere! It’s Nipton, California. A famous three-story tall metal and glass jellyfish sculpture named Bloom, created by artist Peter Hazel, was relocated from the Burning Man festival to the Mojave Desert town of Nipton, California. This was the closest we could get to the sculptures, I zoomed in as far as I could.
I couldn’t find anything about the other two sculptures we could see, but the town was not open. I found the following on Wikipedia: “In January 2023, Nipton was purchased by Spiegelworld, an American theater company, for $2.5 million. Spiegelworld has stated that Nipton will become their new base of operations and will become a place “where Spiegelworld artists and performers will retreat to dream, create and undertake unfettered artistic experimentation.” I was bummed, as it looks like a really interesting place!
We stayed at the Towneplace Suites in Barstow. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it is in the same parking lot as one of the original Del Taco! I went through the drive thru and they didn’t have anything I recognized from the chains, so I went to Panda Express instead. Arrrrghhh!
On Friday, we went to Edwards AFB and to Calico Ghost Town. Mama and I went to Calico years ago and we really enjoyed it. Now it is very commercialized. The shops and buildings are all full of tacky tourist crap shops. I was quite disappointed.
Once I realized about the Barstow Del Taco, I told Ed we had to go for lunch. It lived up to the hype! Co-founder Ed Hackbarth kept ownership of the Barstow stores when selling the rest of the company in 1976, meaning they operate outside the corporate and national franchise system. They use the original recipes and keep the traditional way of serving the items. I ordered the Red Burrito, The Barstow Taco, the Taco Burger and a Combo Cup, all of which are not available in the franchise locations. The amount of meat and freshly grated cheese in the taco was otherwolrdly! I had to take 1/2 of it all back to the hotel, as it was so much food! I am ruined off Taco Bell now, Del Taco is superior, but the Barstow Del Taco is heaven.
After lunch, we drove on to Fresno for our next stay…