Sometimes a day off from work isn’t quite a day off. Sometimes it can be an adventure! Like five years ago when Tom (who was my new roommate at the time) needed someone to go scout laundromats out in Riverside County. He was trying to buy up commercial real estate for the company he worked for in places like Banning and Ontario and Cathedral City. Oh, wait, I totally blogged about it at the time. Here, read about our adventure in Palm Springs that ended with an unintentional stop at a gay western bar.
Tom and I often reminisce about that trip. About the gay bar, the laundromats, it was a good excuse to get out of LA and explore for a day. So last night when he texted me that he needed to scout some locations for the one of his wildly successful YouTube videos (he’s no longer in commercial real estate, he’s produced both the Stan Lee Parkour and Walking Dead Cosplay Piano videos I’ve promoted recently) I told him I’d be happy to join him on the adventure.
Our first stop was at a place called Cougar Buttes, which I think is often used as a site for camping, off-road biking/driving, mountain climbing, hiking and the like. It was a perfect setting, the only complaint was that the wind would pick up in spots, and if you’re going to be filming with a crane that could prove disastrous. We spent a lot of time wandering the landscape to find suitable locations for filming, and me being a wily little adventurer, I spent some time rock climbing and finding little nooks and crannies in which to relax for a few minutes. Here’s some photos from Cougar Buttes:
Somewhere out on California Route 18 (also maybe sometimes informally referred to as “Happy Trails Highway”) we passed not one but TWO Hostess/Wonder outlets, which immediately filled me with sadness. Think of all the Wonder Bread and Twinkees that once filled those shelves. What a tragic loss to the world the death of Wonder/Hostess was. Let’s all take a moment of silence to remember Twinkees.
As is often the case when one is out scouting different locations in a largely rural area, the lunch options aren’t optimal. So we found ourselves shoving Carl’s Jr. down our throats in order to remain energized and hydrated. I have to say, their cheap-o bacon cheeseburger looked absolutely nothing like the one pictured on the menu. Not like it matters. It’s fucking Carl’s Jr.. our options were either that or Taco Bell. What are you gonna do, starve?
Our second location was a 160-acre ranch in Palmdale. According to the guide who met us at the entrance, plenty of big budget movies have been filmed there before as well as some popular television programs. He walked us to one rock formation and boasted that they used the spot to stand in for the Swiss Alps in Cliffhanger. A few hundred yards away, a killer rock formation was apparently the backdrop for a recent episode of CSI or NCIS or one of those shows. Check ’em out, the Cliffhanger Alps and the crazy rock:
After a full eight hours wandering the deserts, it was time to return home. We might not have wound up eating dinner in a gay western bar, but today certainly included a lot of 1-on-1 male bonding time! And…I mean…it’s only 5pm. I guess if we wanted to we could take a ride to Oil Can Harry’s…you know…for old time’s sake!
The Creation – If I Stay Too Long [MP3]
