Mike Bauer

Oh, really?

I moved to L.A.

several years ago from South Louisiana.

I'd never been to Antelope Valley before, but it was immediately familiar to me.

Because if you were to replace desert with swamp, this region would look a lot like the small town I'm from.

It's rural and kind of rundown, there's more landscape than real estate, lots of pickup trucks, and town life seems like a thing of the past.

We got an abandoned motel.

What's this?

Oh, like an abandoned old restaurant and rec hall.

But the closer we get to the Devil's Punchbowl, where Ajay was last spotted, an otherworldly landscape appears, full of spiky Joshua trees and sandstone columns.

I feel like I'm in an old Western movie, you know, like where he's got this like wide, epic landscape shots.

Endless horizons, totally.

Endless horizons.

I can see why Ajay likes to come out here.

Here we are.

Great for me.

Yeah, it was awesome.

Good job.

So I can remember seeing him sitting in the back of his truck when you get done with a run in the mountains.

So when I'd walk out into the parking lot, I'd see him sitting out there and ask him about his run.