Photo Essay: Silver City, A Ghost Town Made of Pieces of Other Ghost Towns

When I first moved to California, some places just seemed so far away. It was impossible for me to wrap my head around making a day trip to Joshua Tree or Palm Springs—a three-hour drive each way. But over the past 14 years, my home state has continued to feel smaller and smaller, easier and easier to tackle. 

In April 2014, I made a detour from the Eastern Sierra to try to see Silver City Ghost Town in Bodfish, California, located in the Kern River Valley of the Southern Sierra. I'd gotten there too late in the day to catch it before it closed or to even photograph it in daylight. And it just seemed so out-of-the-way that it took me 11 years to try again. 

 

This time, I planned my trip a little better and got an earlier start, as I headed home from the early-morning Burro Run I'd attended in Indian Wells Canyon. 

Life Is a Highway

"I don't think I'd like to drive this car," I said, pointing at some unremarkable 1970s compact model at the Petersen Automotive Museum.

"It's cute..." Edith said.

"Oh, who am I kidding? I'd drive any of these cars. Honestly, I'd like to drive any car."

For as long as I can remember, I've been obsessed with the highway.

My earliest favorite TV shows were CHiPs and Emergency!, featuring racing rescue vehicles, multiple car freeway pileups, and motorcycled patrolmen in hot pursuit of their suspect of-the-week. I wore a red and yellow plastic fireman's hat as my Hot Wheels zoomed around the track and across any non-carpeted surface I could find. I was more interested in my Barbie's Corvette than in her Dream House. The car was my dream.

I got my license in the Summer of 1992 just before turning 17, despite knowing that my parents wouldn't neither teach me, nor let me use their car(s), ever. My desire to drive forced me into our public school's Driver's Ed program, whose vehicles were retired cop cars with no power steering and the widest turning radius you've ever seen. I was good at handling them but I needed to be better, and I needed an actual car to drive in the road test. Desperate to drive, I used my own money for private driving lessons from a local guy who let me use his car in the pouring rain.

And then I didn't really drive again until college, when my foolish classmates let me drive their vans and Jeeps and sedans. I managed to hit only one deer. It traumatized me for life. But I wanted to keep driving.

The first time I drove a truck was to move five hours away to New York City. I've driven many since.

The first time I (really) operated a stick shift was in a Formula1 racer. The second time was in a stock car. It won't be the last. I just have to learn.

Show me a car, and I want to drive it. Put me behind the wheel, and I'll go.

Although I did miss my car while it was in the shop for seven weeks, I was happy to cheat on it with some other rentals. Even if I didn't like driving them, I liked feeling them out, seeing what they could do, how they responded to my foot on the pedal, my grip on the wheel. Even in cases in which my Honda is far superior in performance, I liked knowing what the others were like.

Even today, I would drive a fire truck if I could. Unfortunately those aren't available at Enterprise.

For the timebeing, now that I've gotten my Honda back, I'll have to satisfy myself through a few minor dalliances: the occasional racing experience, ridealongs and a birthday spent gawking at museum-restored models....


1953 Nash-Healey


2008 Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione


1955 Ghia Streamline X "Gilda"


1937 Airomobile







Besides the cars themselves (and wagons, bikes, motorcycles, trucks, racers and any other vehicle you can think of), the Petersen Museum also has a fascinating interpretive exhibit about the proliferation of the automobile in California, and the resulting roads, parkways, and freeways, drive-in markets (otherwise known as early strip malls), and service stations. It explains a lot as to why LA is the way it is.



It also reminded me of my interest in desert drag-racing out on dry lakes, something on my bucket list I have yet to do (even just as a spectator).

Even for those that aren't as obsessed with driving as I am, these things are works of art, things of beauty, and gorgeous to observe.

But then again, I'm never very happy just observing.

To Like Avoiding Regret on Facebook, click here.

Photo Essay: The Secret Street Legal Collection at Vic's Garage (Updated for 2023)

[Last updated 6/6/23 11:51 AM PT—Otis Victor Edelbrock, Jr., the son of Edelbrock founder Otis Victor Edelbrock, Sr., passed away in June 2017. Its Torrance facility has closed, and its Southern California operations are now headquartered in Cerritos and the annual car shows no longer take place.]

In LA, every celebrity probably has their own secret car collection.

The question isn't so much, "What kind of car do you have?" but, "How many cars do you have?"

And unless you're friends with Jay Leno, you'll probably never get to see them in person.

Fortunately, we've got access to some fabulous car museums that are open to the public (the Petersen, Automobile Driving Museum, Nethercutt, and Mullin, just off the top of my head)—even if some of them are hiding in secret, and take some finagling to get in.

The Petersen Vault is considered a "hidden" collection, but all you really need to get in is an advance reservation and a paid ticket. (And don't even try to take photos.)

But what about the Honda Museum in Torrance? Or its neighbor, the Toyota USA Automobile Museum?

Once again, the secret to getting in seems to be knowing the right people.



But there's another private car collection in Torrance that's not allowed to be called a "museum"...



...because all of its cars are gassed up and ready to roll at any given time.



And it's not that the public isn't welcome at Vic's Garage—you just have to figure out how to get in.

Photo Essay: How to Drive Through LA Like Steve McQueen

One of the first things I noticed right after moving to LA was how many people drove Porsches here. I'd never seen so many Porsches. In fact, I'm not sure I'd ever seen any Porsche at all before coming to California.



And now, the (recently renovated) Petersen Automotive Museum has launched an entire exhibit devoted to "The Porsche Effect" and how a Czech engineer began to build a career for himself with German automakers in the 1930s...



...while the United States was still in the thick of the Great Depression...



...and just a few years before the U.S, would go to war with Germany, yet again, in the sequel to what was supposed to be "The War To End All Wars."



It's amazing that Porsche—the man and the car—ever achieved any stateside success at all.



But the exhibit at the Petersen argues that the war contributed to the success of Porsche, which embraced a certain "post-war modernity" that turned out to be the right thing at the right time in the right place. And that turned out to be in 1950, amidst "car-starved" Americans.



It also helps that Hollywood welcomed Porsche with open arms (and pocketbooks) and broadly supported the cars both on screen and off. Steve McQueen famously acquired and raced a 1958 Porsche Speedster and later drove a 1970 racer for his starring role in Le Mans.



In the decades that followed, Porsche had enough creativity, power, and influence to create a prototype of a "21st Century Supercar" (at the turn of the millennium)...



...an "Image-Maker" 911 Turbo model from 1970 that could go 160 mph...



...a 1966 Grand Prix de Paris winner...



...the maker's first winning entry in The 24 Hours of Le Mans race in France, hitting speeds of as much as 220 mph...



...and a desert racer that won the Pharaoh Rally in Egypt in 1985 and the Paris-Dakar Rally in 1986.



But it's always kind of a funny thing to see cars like this trapped inside a museum and watch them spinning on a dais. Don't we want to see what these puppies can do?



That's why I found it much more enlightening and engaging to head down to Carson and spend some time at the Porsche Experience Center, one of two such facilities in the country (the other being in Atlanta).



In addition to a showroom—which acts as kind of its own Porsche Museum—there's the "53-Acre Playground" out back, otherwise known as "The Track."



Yes, you can go there and drive a Porsche.



And you don't have to be a current Porsche owner. You don't have to have ever driven a Porsche before. You can still get behind the wheel—and you'll have your own personal "drive coach" guiding you through the experience.



Isn't it nuts that this exists right across the 405 Freeway from the Goodyear Blimp Base Airport and a stone's throw from the local community Walmart, IKEA, and go-kart racing track?



When you sign up for a "Driving Experience," you get to choose which Porsche model to pilot and which course to navigate your way through...



...whether it's the "Handling Circuit" (meant to mimic a challenging country road), an off-roading course, a racing-style straightaway...



...or one of the several low-friction courses meant to induce skids, spins, and oversteering.



My budget didn't allow me to get behind the wheel when I last visited. After all, the affordable experiences range from $235 to $385, and the Steve McQueen-style experiences run upwards of $1000.



I settled for dinner at the Restaurant 917, where I enjoyed butter molded in the shape of Porsche cars...



...and snacked on dessert chocolates molded in the shape of the Porsche insignia.

I promised myself I would go back and drive one day—but not because I want to "fit in" with all those other Angelenos who are rolling up in their Porsche Carrera GTs (the car, by the way, that took actor Paul Walker's life in a fiery crash).

I quite prefer having my day-to-day set of wheels be something unimpressive and unremarkable. Nobody will want to break into it or steal it. And cops won't target me for random traffic stops.

I just want to see what those puppies can do.

Related Posts:
Life Is a Highway
Unfinished Business
The Need for Speed
Off to the Races, Part One
Off to the Races, Part Two
Another Missed Calling

Mexican Wrestling In a Mayan Porno Palace [Updated for 2025—Closed]

[Last updated 9/14/25 10:42 PM PT—The Mayan Theatre closed this weekend as its longtime operator did not renew its lease. The building is still under the same ownership, which seeks a new tenant. At least for now, the Mayan will no longer host its popular salsa dancing events, Exotikon, or Lucha VaVoom.]

I've remarked before that the older I get, the more burnt I like my toast. I just prefer stronger flavors as the years wane on.

circa 2020

But it didn't occur to me until recently that the same is true when it comes to my tastes in architectural design. I'm gravitating more and more towards Frank Gehry, Art Deco ziggurats, and Brutalism than, say, the clean lines of International Style or even Arts and Crafts.

 

circa 2020

I'm even coming around to appreciating the new façade of the Petersen Museum. There's something about how horrible it is that makes me really respect it. At least it's a bold statement.

circa 2020

 

So when it comes to most of the historic movie palaces of Los Angeles, I'm in seventh heaven. Whether it's the Million Dollar or the United Artists, give me cornices and reliefs and plaster molds and mosaics and murals and chandeliers and all the other stuff—the more, the better!



That's one of the reasons why the Mayan Theatre—not on Broadway in LA's Downtown, but close enough—has been calling my name.



With an ornamental "stone" sculpture consisting of seven concrete bas-relief busts of warriors wearing Mayan headdresses by Baja-born painter and archaeologist Francisco Cornejo...



...the exterior gives visitors the feeling of entering a pre-Columbian temple...



...a theme that continues throughout the interior as well, whether in The Hall of Feathered Serpents (downstairs lobby) or The Hall of Emperors (balcony lobby).



There's no shortage of stuff to look at inside the Mayan Theatre.



And although much of it is awash in contemporary colors like pink and hot purple thanks to a modern LED lighting system...



...there's also a great amount of authenticity to the architectural designs by Morgan, Walls, and Clements (also responsible for The Deco Building, Adamson House, and the El Capitan, Leimert, and Wiltern theatres).



Building this theatre—as well as its neighbor, the Belasco, also designed by the same architecture firm—was part of an effort to establish a new theatre district west of Broadway.



That effort was spearheaded by oil magnate Edward L. Doheny, who owned both theatres.



But the new "fashionable" district never really took hold.



The Mayan originally opened in 1927 not as a movie palace but as a legit theatre—one that specialized in musical comedies (some even produced by movie palace impresario Sid Grauman).



It didn't start programming "talkies" until two years later—and even then, it continued to host I've theatrical performances through the 1940s before eventually switching to Spanish-language films and, later, adult films.



Like Downtown's other legit theatre, The Morosco (now The Globe), the way that the Mayan has managed to survive this long is by having transformed into a nightclub and concert venue.



The seats have been removed (though you can still sit on the floor of the risers in the balcony)...



...and twice a year, a ring is brought in for Mexican wrestling (at least, an Americanized version of lucha libre) and burlesque.



Appropriately, the event is known as "Lucha VaVoom," and it's as outrageous as the structure that surrounds it.

I mean, if you're going to try to revive an ancient style, you might as well go as far as you can with it.

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: The Aztec Hotel's Mayan Legacy
Photo Essay: Frank Lloyd Wright Ennis House, Exterior
Photo Essay: Frank Lloyd Wright Ennis House, Interior
Upon the Disappointing Lack of a Mayan Apocalypse