Has it really been that long since they did that?
Yes. I know it was a long time ago because I drove up to Edwards late at night and got to the gate at midnight (I was the first car in line) and then pulled aside and slept until they started letting cars onto the lake-bed around 5:00 am. There is no way I would sleep in a car these days just to watch something I could see on TV or the Internet.
I met Dick Rutan working in the legislature many years later and told him how I was the first one there to watch them land. He said his first reaction when they came over the mountains and saw thousands upon thousands of cars parked was to ask if there was an airshow going on. Melvill radioed back "that crowd is here for you buddy." He couldn't believe we were all there to watch them land since he hadn't been around for the ten days that the story grew and grew in the media as they worked their way around the globe.