Sometimes it can be difficult to define what makes a place worth the stop, especially if that place is somewhere between Bakersfield and Las Vegas.
But then you see it, and it hits you right away: A kid will dismount from an SUV and run onto the parking lot pavement, shouting, skipping, ready to go. And that’s all you need to know that you arrived somewhere special.
On a late June Friday, that’s exactly what happened as families unloaded in the generous parking area of the Murray Family Farms’ Big Red Barn, right off of Highway 58, about 18 miles southeast of downtown Bakersfield. No, it’s not Disneyland, but from the immediate reactions of most children, teens and even adults upon arrival, the stop is a destination unto itself.
Murray Family Farms started out as a modest 20-acre lot in 1989, when family patriarch Steve Murray purchased a small swath of land to farm. Part of that land makes up where the Big Red Barn stands today. Now, 36 years later, the family business encompasses 320 acres in and around Bakersfield. There’s a second location as well, a smaller but equally buzzy spot known as the Little Purple Barn, right off I-5…