Today we drove up to Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake to visit the US Naval Museum of Armament and Technology.  It took about an hour to meet with a base clerk to fill out forms, have a background check run, and get passes to drive onto the base.  Out front, the museum has a Fat Man-type atomic bomb chassis which was tested here NAWS China Lake:

An EA-6B and an F-18 are parked out front:

The museum is extensive, and covers the armaments designed and/or tested here at China Lake:

The Shrike anti-radar missle:

Some things go without saying:

HARM, the replacement for the Shrike:

This is The Bat, a radar-guided bomb used in World War II.  Not to be confused with the bat bombs developed in the US during the same period, which released thousands of bats with napalm strapped to them:

It’s all vacuum tubes in The Bat, as the silicon transistor wouldn’t be invented until 1954:

Much of the museum was devoted to the Sidewinder missile and its many variants:

Each of these warhead variants served different purposes:

I really enjoyed the wealth of technical information provided:

More missiles:

Many weapon systems have been developed here over the decades:

When we finished touring the museum, we drove west and south to overnight on BLM land outside of Rosamond, California.  On the way, we passed the Mojave Air and Space Port, where Virgin Galactic spacecraft are tested.  See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

This morning we hitched up and filled up at the Furnace Creek gas station before leaving Death Valley.  We’ve been on the road so long that this doesn’t even qualify as a tight fit:

So long, Death Valley!  I was sad to leave, but I’m sure we will be back someday:

We drove north and west to cross Townes Pass, then drove south through the Panamint Valley to the company town of Trona, California, named after the mineral mined there.  From there, we drove south on a dirt road to the Trona Pinnacles National Natural Landmark.

The pinnacles are tufa spires formed here when this basin was the floor of a 600 foot deep lake.  Hot springs beneath the lake floor squirted calcite-rich water up into the cooler lake water, which cooled the spring water and precipitated out calcium carbonate around the spring vents.  Over time, these precipitates accumulated and built up around the vents to heights of over 140 feet tall.

As the Sierra Nevada mountains continued to rise, less and less rain clouds were able to make it over the mountains from the ocean.  The climate in the valley became increasingly dry, and the lake dried up, leaving the previously submerged lake floor and its tufa spires exposed: 

We picked a flat spot next to one of the tufa spires to call home:

There are hundreds of spires here:

Dozens of movies have been filmed here.  We are parked on the left side of the spire that is brushing McCoy’s shoulder in this scene from Star Trek 5:

Getting ready for Shabbos at the pinnacles:

Sunset was amazing:

Good Shabbos from the Trona Pinnacles:

See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.