On the way out of Nevada to CA you're going to pass a number of dry lakes including a couple on the way to Baker, like Silurian DL. I know a guy who drove up from LA to test fly a jet there. Why not use one of them? I fly at Rabbit DL all the time, and, besides being a great place to fly, it's much more forgiving if you have problems and it's a lot closer to you than Buttonwillow. Rabbit DL in Lucerne Valley is open to anyone, so you can try it.

They didn't mention that if you want to fly as a guest at BW, you need to get a member who has a key to the gate and the general aviation Unicom radio to be there too.

(Oops, Dougie beat me to the radio bit!)