Hi Vista, CA

Most visitors who find Hi Vista are on their way to one of its buttes. This sparse unincorporated corner of Los Angeles County, out past the eastern reaches of Lancaster, holds a state park and a state historic park inside a landscape that otherwise has almost nothing built on it. The homes are few and far apart. A single home might sit on a big parcel with only a fence line and a driveway to mark it, and the next one could be a long walk away. Mountains ring the valley in the distance, and nothing taller than a Joshua tree interrupts them. Saddleback Butte State Park serves as the big backyard, nearly 3,000 acres set aside in the 1960s so its Joshua trees and the granite butte at its center would stay wild. For anything else, the hometown by default is Lake Los Angeles, the next community to the south. Stephen Sorensen Park there has the gym, ball fields and splash pads, Los Chiles handles a sit-down Mexican dinner, and La Poblanita Bakery on 170th Street East opens at dawn for tamales and fresh bread. The old store and gas station are closed, so there's no counter to linger at and no spot where news gets passed around, and social life drifts south to Lake LA. Those who stay here trade that for mornings when the only sound is wind across the creosote and the butte catches the first light.