CA road trip

Here are a few shots from my recent road trip north. I decided to drive to the Bay Area without using highway 5 and I picked a few historic destinations along the way.

First stop was the remains of a socialist commune called Llano del Rio which existed from 1913-1917. The site is just off highway 138 near Palmdale.

At it's peak, 1000 residents occupied this self-proclaimed utopia but a lack of water resources forced them to relocate to Louisiana.
It is considered to be the most important socialist experiment in the western US but currently is not recognized as California historical site.

Next stop was an abandoned gold mine outside of Mojave. ( Special point of interest here: Mojave has branded itself 'The Gateway to Space' due to the Rotary Rocket project which was conducted at the Mojave airport, discontinued in 2001. Now it's an air and space port. )

The mine wasn't as old or interesting as I expected, but these abandoned houses on the property were creepy and awesome.

I drove up through the Tehachapi pass and North into the Sequoia National Forest where I camped for a night. I didn't get rained on nearly as much as I expected, but the breakup of the storm made for some great clouds.

These are possible Native American grinding holes along the Kern River, but sometimes you just get rocks with holes in them....