M
modelbuilder
Guest
Hey All,
I completed my first "adventure." We left San Bernardino CA at 8am and drove up the 15 freeway to Barstow where we then headed west on Highway 58.
Off of Highway 58 we turned north on Harper Dry Lake road. The road is littered with small desert shacks and old agricultural fields. Above Lockhart is a Solar Panel facility...and above that is an old Lockheed test field...if you look close enough you can see the outline of the old air strip. We didn't get that far though...keep reading.
As we headed up Harper Dry Lake Road we passed a older model baby blue Chevy pickup with a trailer attached parked behind the railroad track "mound" (The tracks were elevated). There were two men by the truck who working feverishly with something on the ground. We only noticed them because I happened to glance up into my rear view mirror. We joked that they were burying dead bodies......
When we finally arrived in Lockhart we stopped at the old gas station/Cattle store. I found an old manual on the ground (see picture) and if you zoom in close enough you can see the name of the company that used to inhabit the building. As we stepped inside we noticed that someone had built a basketball court (see pictures). We found some stairs at the back of the building as we were about to ascend we heard a car coming up the road. My buddy told me to see if it was the blue pick up was passed earlier. As I stepped back out side I watched the baby blue pick up drive by....go up the road a bit....turn around...and come straight back for us. I yelled to the guys that we need to get out of here. As soon as they all jumped back in the car the truck was about 40 feet in front of us head on. I stepped on the gas and turned back down the road. Then it got really weird...out of no where this semi-truck without a trailed pulls out onto the road. And this guy was stepping on the gas. I had to stay at 75 just to stay ahead of him.
I figured we needed to make it back out to highway 58 before we could pull to the side as there were other cars and no one would even think about doing anything if passersby could see us. We made it back to 58 and decided it would be safer if we explored the other side of 58 going south on Dry Lake road...so we did.
We eventually found our way to the Helendale Lockheed RCS facility (see pics) where much of our stealth technology has been created. We pulled up along side the fence and snapped some shots of the hanger and satellite dishes. Security drove by a few times but pretty much left us alone. We continued to drive around the perimiter but decided to stop as we did not want to agitate the security.
Continuing on we found ourselves at the back end of the Southern California Logistics airport which used to be George Air Force Base. We found the airplane graveyard and shot some pretty cool pics of the retired passenger jets. We heard loud sounds coming from one of the planes and initially thought that someone was working but we found that the rotor blade was spinning because of the wind...pretty neat to see engines turning that were attached to a dead jetliner....email me if you would like the video.
We drove around the perimeter and found our way back to highway 395...jumped back on the 15 and came back home. We got back to San Bernardino around 12:30pm....
I would love to go back to Lockhart to see the dry lake bed and do some more exploring but I'd need some other vehicles to come along....not going out there alone again!
If you would like the route we took PM me and Ill give you the route on Google Earth.
PICS HERE!!!
http://picasaweb.google.com/realshafer/2008_05_14LockhartWithJoe
http://picasaweb.google.com/caprica75/LockhartTrip
I completed my first "adventure." We left San Bernardino CA at 8am and drove up the 15 freeway to Barstow where we then headed west on Highway 58.
Off of Highway 58 we turned north on Harper Dry Lake road. The road is littered with small desert shacks and old agricultural fields. Above Lockhart is a Solar Panel facility...and above that is an old Lockheed test field...if you look close enough you can see the outline of the old air strip. We didn't get that far though...keep reading.
As we headed up Harper Dry Lake Road we passed a older model baby blue Chevy pickup with a trailer attached parked behind the railroad track "mound" (The tracks were elevated). There were two men by the truck who working feverishly with something on the ground. We only noticed them because I happened to glance up into my rear view mirror. We joked that they were burying dead bodies......
When we finally arrived in Lockhart we stopped at the old gas station/Cattle store. I found an old manual on the ground (see picture) and if you zoom in close enough you can see the name of the company that used to inhabit the building. As we stepped inside we noticed that someone had built a basketball court (see pictures). We found some stairs at the back of the building as we were about to ascend we heard a car coming up the road. My buddy told me to see if it was the blue pick up was passed earlier. As I stepped back out side I watched the baby blue pick up drive by....go up the road a bit....turn around...and come straight back for us. I yelled to the guys that we need to get out of here. As soon as they all jumped back in the car the truck was about 40 feet in front of us head on. I stepped on the gas and turned back down the road. Then it got really weird...out of no where this semi-truck without a trailed pulls out onto the road. And this guy was stepping on the gas. I had to stay at 75 just to stay ahead of him.
I figured we needed to make it back out to highway 58 before we could pull to the side as there were other cars and no one would even think about doing anything if passersby could see us. We made it back to 58 and decided it would be safer if we explored the other side of 58 going south on Dry Lake road...so we did.
We eventually found our way to the Helendale Lockheed RCS facility (see pics) where much of our stealth technology has been created. We pulled up along side the fence and snapped some shots of the hanger and satellite dishes. Security drove by a few times but pretty much left us alone. We continued to drive around the perimiter but decided to stop as we did not want to agitate the security.
Continuing on we found ourselves at the back end of the Southern California Logistics airport which used to be George Air Force Base. We found the airplane graveyard and shot some pretty cool pics of the retired passenger jets. We heard loud sounds coming from one of the planes and initially thought that someone was working but we found that the rotor blade was spinning because of the wind...pretty neat to see engines turning that were attached to a dead jetliner....email me if you would like the video.
We drove around the perimeter and found our way back to highway 395...jumped back on the 15 and came back home. We got back to San Bernardino around 12:30pm....
I would love to go back to Lockhart to see the dry lake bed and do some more exploring but I'd need some other vehicles to come along....not going out there alone again!
If you would like the route we took PM me and Ill give you the route on Google Earth.
PICS HERE!!!
http://picasaweb.google.com/realshafer/2008_05_14LockhartWithJoe
http://picasaweb.google.com/caprica75/LockhartTrip
