It was almost midnight and the party at my house was coming to an end.  I suggested that we go to the phone booth.  The Mojave Phone Booth is a lonely pay telephone sitting in the middle of the California Mojave Desert.  It was put there at the end of World War II for use by a mine that was located near there.  The mine closed sometime in the 60's.  Even though it was no longer in regular use, the telephone company updated the phone to a push dial phone sometime in the 70's.  Now there is sits.  It is located 25 miles past Baker, California off the Interstate 15.  Then down a very long and bumpy dirt road.  It is about 12 miles down this road….about half way down the road there is a fork, stay to the left and follow the lonely string of telephone poles.  It is a surreal setting.

I knew that it was going to be a challenge to find it in the middle of the night but that's the fun of it.  We left our house at about 12:05am…..there was one passenger car following us.  We arrived in Baker, at Bun Boy at 2:00am.  We then loaded into the four wheel drive vehicle heading for destination phone booth.  We found the dirt road which had a sign for the Aiken Mine….we followed.  There were no lights, no moon, only the light of the billions of stars in the blackened sky.  It was fun and scary at the same time.  About 9 miles in we hit a very deep hole in the road which blew out our front tire.  We stopped for about 45 minutes to change the tire….the jack of the car was not up to standard….but this gave most of us the chance to watch the sky. 

With the tire fixed and three more miles to go, we start again.  There is a reflexion in the distance.  It's the phone booth.  It's not a myth.  It's real.  We are excited.  We pull up.  The phone is ringing.  I jump out of the car but just missed that caller.  We are disappointed…..but then….