As promised, I'm blogging from the road. The first night was a bit hectic, so, don't shoot me for not writing!
Day 1, Livermore, CA, to Yosemite NP, to Las Vegas, NV.
The plan: 580 E to 120 E through Yosemite NP, south to Vegas on 395.
So here's what ACTUALLY happened on day one:
Here's my sweet ride, all packed! Ben and I kicked off around 10:30 am.
So, we get to Yosemite after a beautiful drive, and they're like...oh yea, 120 E is closed because there is 5' feet of snow over the pass. And....so is every other road going through the park that way....annndddd it was snowing at the visitors center. And, there I am in my flip flops!
I'm not the best granola in all, I was just passing through after all!
So, we had to exit on route 140 and go back out to Merced, CA and down 99 S. Awesome. And 4 hours out of the way.
On a happy note, "Running Down Dream" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, was playing on the stereo as I crossed the state line into Nevada. How appropriate!
Anyway, We didn't get in to Vegas until about 11:30, so it was not ideal, but we ended up walking around and staying out until four am anyhow. It's freakin' Vegas!
My comments on Vegas are this: I really dug the atmosphere and the attitude. Dude, they have buildings that they designed to lean because THEY COULD. They made Venice...BECAUSE THEY COULD. Vegas was populated by bootleggin' gangsters and it's held up today. It is one big NEW adult playground. I did NOT dig the slutty looking girls all around and the SMOKING. Everywhere. Cigarette smoke literally gives me a headache (sad, I know I'm a wimp), and this was just not good. Yuck. My camera took a poo (battery) when we got to Vegas, so I have 0 pictures. Boo.
Day 2. Las Vegas, NV to Winslow, AZ via the Hoover Dam
This day started off slowly because Ben and I were out until 4:30, hence, I said, let's aim to leave Vegas by noon.
Short Day, this day. The original plan was to loop up and see the Grand Canyon, but it was just not in the plan today!
We did drive by Lake Mead in NV/AZ, which actually ended up taking us an hour because of the traffic build up at the Hoover Dam security entrance.
Here's Lake Mead
Which was followed by the Hoover Dam. We just drove through and I narrowly escaped with reasonable blood pressure. I can't imagine having to drive that road all the way to work everyday with all of the "dam" tourists (Yes, HA!).
Security was tight at the entrance too. The guy made us pull off to the side so he could search my car because Ben and I look like we're actually the Griswald's. And he removed my tarp which I had worked very hard to get down and NOT be flapping in the wind, and he almost made me take my bike rack off the back (would have take like 20 min to get back on) to look inside the back hatch. Ben nicely asked him to look through the window, and he obliged. He was looking for firearms, so he said!
Ben and I tried to remedy my dead camera battery with a somewhat unsuitable charger and ended up blowing a fuse in my car. The fuse controls the cigarette lighter...so can you guess what other essential piece of equipment chews on this power supply? Yep! The GPS. Uh-oh. Thank GOD I have Ben with me...he was able to change out my fuse with relative ease. What a guy! And, he even got me prepared for driving through the desert.
I am SO thankful I am not driving alone.
So, beside the snow and the fuses, it was really ridiculously windy the whole way across AZ. Since I am driving an extra heavy car with a trillion things tied on top, this is challenging!
Ben and I decided to push through a ways tonight and go to Winslow, AZ. ("Standin' on the corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a fine sight to see...) Well, we cleared Flagstaff, AZ, and on our way out of the city we saw a sign that say "Road closed 34 miles ahead due to severe dust storm." We're New Yorkers and have lived through snow storms, so, soldier on we did.
Well, turns out they weren't kidding. Traffic was stopped for miles in both directions and we sat there among hundreds of semi-trucks for hours. NOT that fun, let me tell you! We were 36 miles from Winslow and saddle sore. Ben has developed a bit of a cold this week, and he needs his rest, so I was trying to get him there as fast as possible. No dice at 3 mph. the storm had "blown" over and we were moving, albeit slowly!
I will try to give you an idea of the magnitude of this stop. I saw the AZ State Police starting the line of traffic moving in the western direction (opposite of me) after the storm had passed through. I saw this start to happen about 34 miles from our exit in Winslow. When I exited at Winslow, I was still watching the line of dense traffic move along. Holy cow!
More tomorrow! On the road! Trying to put the gaping hole in my heart at ease at leaving everyone behind in California. It's a strange feeling to feel the earth going on spinning and the people you care about still all being together in one place, but you have to hope that they throw you a thought every once in a while and miss you a bit!
Miles to be covered tomorrow. Keep on rockin'! See you soon, Oklahoma!
No comments:
Post a Comment