The Greatest Unincorporated Township in America

I attended a reception organized by the Morongo Basin Cultural Arts Council on Saturday evening where I met Steve Lipsitz, the self-proclaimed "Mayor of Goat Mountain". Steve is a fellow New Yorker who sold up and moved out here 4 years ago. He kindly invited me to brunch at his house in Landers followed by a visit to Giant Rock and the environs.

Steve's house is smack up against Goat Mountain and looks out over the entire valley to Joshua Tree, the San Jacinto Mountains surrounding Palm Springs as well as the even higher snowy peaks of San Gorgonio (11,500 ft). We had a lovely brunch in Steve's outdoor dining area, took a tour of the garden which includes pistachio, fig and grapes, and then headed out to Giant Rock.




Giant Rock is just that, perhaps the largest freestanding boulder in the world. The site once included an airport and the Come and Get-It Cafe. The rock is spectacular, particularly following a split which caused a large chunk to fall off. The area is now home to the freewheeling crowd that comes here on the weekend to run their ATV's over every nook of the desert. We sent quite some time gathering garbage before we took off.







Right near the rock is a dry pan which was purported by a man called George Van Tassel to be the site of a visitation by Venusians. It was on this visit that George "was instructed" to build the Integraton, an acoustically perfect geodisic dome designed to be a "a time machine, a rejuvenation machine and an anti-gravity device." I visited the Integraton during High Desert Test Site in 2006 for a wonderful session of laughing yoga led by David Dodge. Today, visitors are able to take sound baths in the dome.



On the road back to Landers, we came across a rattler. The green mojave rattlesnake is the most venomous snake in the US. I hung back as Mike tried to get it to rattle for my benefit. Apparently, this is very early for rattlers who usually hibernate until after Memorial Day, which strikes me as a sensible idea.

We stopped by the local Buddhist sanctuary, Wat Santi Buddhist Forest Meditation Center. We were greeted by a monk who gave us a wonderful tour complete with a lesson on karma. In summary, don't kill a rattler and one won't come after you! The monks are building a new outdoor meditation area protected from the wind and heated by large freestanding fireplaces. They have just taken delivery of a very larges Buddha from Colorado and another from Thailand is making its way to the site. These two statues will be placed in a new structure to be built in front of the main meditation hall. We were invited back to celebrate Thai New Year's this coming Sunday.

The monk summed it all up. We like it here as the cost of living is low, the weather is wonderful and there is a great sense of spaciousness. His only concern was about the recent migration of more crystal meth labs to this virtual paradise.