My Dad always seemed like a pretty bright guy to me but he had some interesting personality quirks. Back in the 60’s, there was a tremendous amount of interest in the SST or Super Sonic Transport jet aircraft. Many pundits believed that supersonic passenger and cargo aircraft were the way to the future. These types of aircraft have a some serious but apparently ignored flaws one being that when decelerating from or accelerating to supersonic speeds, there would be impressive sonic booms.

An entire metropolitan area with many isolated neighborhoods was laid out, some utilities were installed and many roads were anticipated in the area now filled with the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale. Giant aircraft manufacturers and contractors flocked to the area because there was to be an airport long enough to land SSTs and plenty of room to have sonic booms over mostly uninhabited desert. Building contractors were busy with abundant construction. Paradise was looming. There were plans to create lakes although the soil looks a bit porous to me. Land sales boomed.

My Dad, despite being an aerospace engineer, reckoned he could get a real estate license and make a little money selling acreage to the looming population. Unfortunately, right about that time reality set in when even the most ardent SST supporters finally admitted that the SST concept had additional previously glossed-over but fatal flaws. The things sucked fuel. Their cargo carrying capacities were unimpressive. They were shaped like rockets with very skinny fuselages making passenger capacity was so low that passengers would be required to pay a bunch more for all the fuel needed to make them go fast. There were few airports with surrounding populations that were deaf so destinations were limited. My Dad really wanted to sell some of the unremarkable desert to someone before the land boom went bust so he sold 5 acres to himself. My sister thinks he paid about $12K.

The flawed airport and aircraft concepts were abandoned. The aircraft manufacturers vanished. Despite the setbacks, Palmdale and Lancaster collectively have a population of over 300,000. Perhaps those buying in early preferred to live here and commute to the Los Angeles Basin than to move again back into a smaller house in the city. They were trapped. Many years of static land values ensued.

When my Dad passed away a few years ago, my siblings and I inherited the 5 acres he sold himself back in the Nixon Administration. A probate guy went out to Palmdale and found the property way beyond the last paved road east of Lancaster in what was supposed to be the proposed, nearly imaginary neighborhood of Hi Vista. His best estimate of the land’s value was $10.00.

Skipping ahead to today; my sister Julie and her crony, Steve, drove from their comfy digs over in Pasadena out to our RV camp at Soledad Canyon where we all piled into our spacious truck and went out to see our legacy. Steve was our navigator once we traveled through Lancaster and was the only one in the truck that knew anything about the area. Julie, Peggy and I were completely ignorant of anything local. I guided us down the wrong road for a bit but soon we accessed a state highway and then a freeway up to Lancaster. There we turned off and headed east on what may be the longest straight city street in the world. Miles in the distance, the same road could be seen until cresting a ridgetop. We drove for quite a while before we drove over the ridge where the same arrow-straight road could be seen crossing the next distant ridge. We were looking looking for a road intersection called H.8 and 255^th and we started out in Lancaster at 1^st Street.

With Steve’s steadfast map perusal and accurate dead reckoning, we found the family lands. The estate is partway up a gradual slope so there is an expansive view of the abundant surrounding nothingness. All the roads are dirt. Water seems to be available from a leaky water station at H.8 and 250^th where we spotted a guy filling a plastic water tank in the back of a pickup truck. Perhaps he was the local water delivery guy but while he was filling his tank, water seemed to be spouting out of many locations on the infrastructure. Across the street from the family manse, there is a resourceful group with about 10,000 square feet of tarped-in reefer farm. There are no nearby proper houses although a very few old RVs can be spotted in the bleak, austere surroundings. We spotted some telephone poles but, strangely, no wires. I think the yearly property taxes are about $150 so we may not be knocking them dead with this asset.

Leaving our valuable holdings and after only another mile or two of dirt road driving, we found a paved road and started on the long, dead-straight road back west toward Lancaster, invisible in the distance. Our wayfinding computer kicked in and soon we were back in our trailer in Soledad Canyon.