a wide flat place low down between two ranges
They call it Bako. Bakersfield sits too heavy on your mind. “I’m in Bakersfield still?” But good ol’ Bako, you can stay there awhile. You’ll think it ain’t much to look at until you drive into Oildale. The rooflines get even lower. In Bakersfield things are one story, in Oildale they’re not quite. Maybe folks wanted to save on lumber, maybe it’s sinking in the sand. Sand everywhere. The Central Valley is a desert. Sand and sun. Heat you wouldn’t believe.
The Sierra Nevada’s on one side, the Coastal Range on the other, and Bakersfield tucked in just north of the Angeles mountains, that windy stretch of highway called The Grapevine that drops you into L.A. With mountains on three sides and the smog with nowhere to go, this geographic location could be called the bottom of the barrel.