395 and 14 SFV to Reno - Overview 2

The highway carrying you north is California State Route 14. It begins back at Interstate 5 in Sylmar, on the northern lip of the San Fernando Valley, and runs up to meet US-395 near Inyokern — the seam where this tour's desert miles give way to the long Owens Valley run.

Its lower stretch, the Antelope Valley Freeway, is one of the busiest commuter routes in the state, funneling Santa Clarita, Palmdale, and Lancaster toward Los Angeles. But north of Palmdale the traffic thins and the character changes. Here the road carries a fitting second name: the Aerospace Highway. It threads the boundary between the Mojave's heat and the rising wall of the Sierra Nevada, passing the dry lakes of Edwards Air Force Base — once a primary runway for the Space Shuttle — and pointing toward the Navy's vast China Lake ranges. For decades the skies above this asphalt have been a proving ground for rockets, jets, and record-breaking flight.

So as you drive, remember you're tracing a corridor that has always been about movement: Native trade paths, wagon and stage roads, the railroad, and now a ribbon of pavement between the city and the wide-open desert.