โWeโre all Star Wars nuts,โ Barry Ray says as his wife, Melissa, and daughter Evie play nearby.
Evie knows all the Star Wars characters from multiple readings of the Little Golden Books series, which retells stories from the sci-fi franchise for children. She is wearing a Princess Leia costume so, in keeping with the canon, her parents are dressed as Darth Vader and Padmรฉ Amidala.
They have travelled from Granbury, Texas, to celebrate Evieโs sixth birthday in the middle of a 40-hectare (100-acre) dry lake bed that is the next best thing to Tatooine. The previous night, they had watched the 1977 original, Star Wars: Episode IV โ A New Hope, inside a two-bedroom cave.
โWeโve had a great time,โ Ray says, โand itโs an experience she wonโt ever forget.โ
โItโ is OutpostX, a swathe of raw desert in Beryl, Utah, flush with science-fiction iconography that founder Travis Chambers refers to as โa filmset hotel with a storyโ.