This is going to be a very gratifying Post, and probably won’t be viewed by anyone anyway, but it’ll feel real good to write it and help expose the weird goings-on in Ridgecrest and China Lake. We know you can’t wait for it, because it’s been needed for a very long time, but this is a dirty job and someone has to do it.

What is the “China Lake Museum of missles and crazy smart people?” We’ll tell you. It’s not a museum, it’s a gift shop with a few displays of techie weapons and a great supply of hats, coffee cups, t-shirts and other stuff that we can parade around in while waving our flags. Isn’t that a horrible description? Yes, and it’s not a museum. It’s a check-in counter at a closed-to-the-public “navy base”. Worse than that, it’ll cost you $5 or $10 bucks to get in. LOL! Nothing like keeping the proles out (Wherry)

Ok, let’s try this. What is a Quonset Hut. Answer: It’s a round roof but smaller version of the old grocery store across the street from the Smoke Shop. Does anybody remember the name? We don’t. The new remodel will probably be offices or something like that, we haven’t read anything in the papers about it but it’s highly likely there’s something in both of them, the papers that is, not the quonset huts. Perhaps you could inform us at tips@Roadrunner395.com

Or How about this, WTF is a “fatboy” atom bomb doing in the parking lot at the CHMA&T (LOL again. Gotcha). If the China Lake Museum of blah & blah has an atom bomb in the parking lot, do you stand out in the parking and take pictures of it with your friends? No, not with Manzanar up the road few miles. Instead driving by Ridgecrest, save yourself two hours and the expense of seeing the fatboy and the coffee cups and head on up the road to Lone Pine and Mt Whitney. Get a burger in Inyokern and you’ll see it all in less time than it would take to stop in Ridgecrest and visit that crappy museum gift shop in a quonset hut (the “heritage” version of todays modular trailers).

Never, never stop in Ridgecrest unless you want a burger and some coffee immediately and can’t wait 10 minutes to stop in Inyokern (wait a minute, we just figured out if you go straight to CLASSIC BURGERS IN INYOKERN instead of to the golden arches in Ridgecrest, it’ll take you the same amount of time. HAHA boys) and if you must see a museum, go to the Maturango Museum instead. If you do that, you’ll learn about the high desert and all it has to offer. If you visit the “navy” museum, all you’ll see is nothing but gifts and shirts, and a quick look at the displays will tell you nothing about China Lake NOTS and the first 35 years of the U.S. Navy’s presence in the desert.

The final point we’d like to use to illustrate the problem here, and we’ll credit the “sculpture” artist that created it: None other than Mr. “Skipper” Gorman, a “volunteer” contributor to the Daily Independent newspaper, a thin empty shell of a “local newspaper” owned by Gannett PC of Virginia. (Politically Correct to the MAXXX). What a joke. Anyway, Skipper is probably so proud of his “monument” we’d like to show it to him, alongside “fatboy”, but you get the point, or maybe you don’t. We don’t care anyway.

Here’s Skipsters City of Ridgecrest sculpture first.

It feels gratifying to get this off our chest, so gratifying we thought we’d throw in a few other choice images of the places to see in Ridgecrest. Can you tell which is the Pierce Elementary School (Sierra Sands “unified” School District) and the Navy museum? No? You haven’t been looking around much or don’t care much to do so, we have and we don’t. The ironies and similarities are so striking that only a psycho could think these things up, and we can think of one or two “monuments” we’d like to tear down or bury, better yet, how about move the sidewinder from the City Hall over to the China Lake Museum of missles and bombs, then it won’t be so ironic. Or vice versa if you prefer.

And by the way, if you go to the website of the China Lake Museum of Armaments and Technology (NAWSCL), go and review the “Short History of China Lake”. LOL, we just searched and TripAdvisor calls it a “national treasure” LOL!!! Hint: this really isn’t unintentional. If this doesn’t repel your soul, NAWSCL is the place you ought to be and Ridgecrest is a great place to leave from.

Indeed, it’s been shortened alright, the Naval Heritage that is, and you’ll find no mention of Lt. John F. Kennedy, Hero (U.S. Navy) or anything else that might be meaningful from China Lake’s Heritage. You can always travel through the parks over to Wherry housing. That’s true Naval Heritage but they don’t want you to know that. Hide the women and children, the Man Camp$ are coming and don’t forget to pickup your Child ID Cards over at Heritage Village, now available monthly from now on for the next 3-5 years. Cynical? Yes. Are we looking forward to using the picture gallery below over and over? HELL YES.

LOL!!! Boys that sure felt good!