Road across the Mojave desert--I have several
pictures from the desert that look exactly like this one.
Is it Monday? We’ve been on the road so long that we’ve lost track of the days. At dinner we recalled that last Monday was Memorial Day and we were in Denver. Now, a week later we’re in Flagstaff, Arizona. Today was our first day heading east. We left our hotel in Oakland, California this morning at 6:15 a.m. and after about 770 miles of driving we arrived at our hotel in Flagstaff at 6:30 p.m. We’re working our way back across the country via I-40. We’ve got a lot of highway yet to cover.
Today’s journey had to rank as the most dull of the trip so far. As we drove through central California, we played the very thrilling game of Guess What’s Growing in that Field! We passed field after field of orchards, grape vineyards, and other cow-manured fields awaiting seeds. When we didn’t have any plant life to identify, we played that other thrilling road game, Is That A Cow or a Sheep? When my father tried to figure out what one particular cow could have been eating in a field of rocks and dirt, I knew we had been in the car too long. Sadly, the cows and sheep gave us something to look at besides the endless desert. From Bakersfield to about 100 miles before Flagstaff, the scenery rarely changed. Desert. Short shrubs and cacti in the desert. A lone house or trailer. An abandoned car. A dry lake or riverbed. Sometimes the road curved and we crossed the occasional mountain, but mostly we saw nothing. We hoped passing Edwards Air Force Base would give us something to see, but no such luck. The entire area looks like a dirt runway, so what we could see of the base from the highway didn’t really stand out. It was hard keeping the van below 80 mph when there was so little to make me want to take my time. Let’s hope Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma have more to offer. I’ll let you know.
Today’s journey had to rank as the most dull of the trip so far. As we drove through central California, we played the very thrilling game of Guess What’s Growing in that Field! We passed field after field of orchards, grape vineyards, and other cow-manured fields awaiting seeds. When we didn’t have any plant life to identify, we played that other thrilling road game, Is That A Cow or a Sheep? When my father tried to figure out what one particular cow could have been eating in a field of rocks and dirt, I knew we had been in the car too long. Sadly, the cows and sheep gave us something to look at besides the endless desert. From Bakersfield to about 100 miles before Flagstaff, the scenery rarely changed. Desert. Short shrubs and cacti in the desert. A lone house or trailer. An abandoned car. A dry lake or riverbed. Sometimes the road curved and we crossed the occasional mountain, but mostly we saw nothing. We hoped passing Edwards Air Force Base would give us something to see, but no such luck. The entire area looks like a dirt runway, so what we could see of the base from the highway didn’t really stand out. It was hard keeping the van below 80 mph when there was so little to make me want to take my time. Let’s hope Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma have more to offer. I’ll let you know.
P.S. Near Barstow we so gassed up at $4.79! Since crossing into Arizona, gas has fallen below $4 a gallon.
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