Llano, CA

A strip of irrigated fairway is the last thing a driver expects to see this deep in the Mojave, yet Crystalaire Country Club keeps one green on Boca Raton Avenue in Llano. The course is the unexpected landmark of this far-flung unincorporated community in Los Angeles County, the final stop before the San Bernardino County line. Everything else about the place is desert scale. Homes are spread across big parcels, often older houses or manufactured homes with corrals, sheds and plenty of bare ground around them. Between clusters there can be a mile of nothing but creosote, and the San Gabriels run along the south the whole way. History sits right beside the highway. What's left of the Llano del Rio cooperative colony, a hotel's rock chimneys and an old silo, is the sight nearly every visitor pulls over for. For hiking, the county's Devil's Punchbowl lies west in the foothills, and the nearest neighborhood park is back in Pearblossom. Redbird's Creative Bakes, a little Pearblossom bakery, is one of the nearest places to pick up something fresh, Farther west, Golden Star Vineyards opens its tasting room on weekend afternoons, and Charlie Brown Farms, the old roadside market in Littlerock, stays open seven days a week. A full shopping trip means Palmdale to the west, or the stores of the Victor Valley going the other way, and either one makes for a long round trip across open desert. The downside most people feel is the highway on weekends. Midweek, the same road is empty enough that the drive home past the colony ruins feels like the only car on the map.