Day #39—Bakersfield, CA, to Flagstaff, AZ, Comfort Inn--Thursday June 30

Valerie called at 6 AM thinking that I was closer to home and on OK time. I didn't mind getting this wake-up call at all. Actually it wasn‘t a wake-up call as I was awake but still in bed. Saw me off to an early start. I was on the road by 7:30. 

The valet brought my car around, radio blaring ("Hope you didn‘t mind if I turned on the radio"). I drove off, briefly on 99S before I picked up 58W. A lot of traffic and a poor road. I saw a sign for 15 south to San Berdoo. Made me think of our move there in the 70s so that Jeff could begin his college teaching career. We were a young family Jess was 4 and Lucy only 13 mo. 

We spent our first year in a friend’s cabin in Running Springs in the San Bernardino Mountains (which I think I could see in the distance as I crossed the Mojave Desert toward Needles). Jeff taught at Cal State, San Bernardino, and had to take off snow chains on the way to work and then put them on again half way up to the cabin. We spent our second and third years (Jeff was on a 3-year, terminal contract) as "flatlanders" in the houses of CSSB faculty who were on sabbatical. For most of this three years, the girls slept on pallets on the floor. They were wonderful years, though, because there was so much to see and do. We could be in three feet of snow in Running Springs and then a couple of hours later in bathing suits at Laguna Beach. The desert in Palm Springs came alive in the spring with wildflowers. There were several oases that were super birding areas. In winter, there were only a handful of families permanently in residence in Running Springs, and we became fast friends with several of them, playing cards in the evening, helping out at the preschool, taking long walks into the forest with our kids, and eating often at each other's cabins. 

My mind was pulled back to the present when I passed a giant wind farm in Tehachapi Pass between Bakersfield and Barstow. Had to be at least 1,000 turbines spiking the brown hills, some layered down the hillsides. The pass itself was a long haul and many trucks and a few cars stopped at the top to pant a bit before the long descent, which was also hard on the trucks.

Near Boron, I passed 20 Mule Team Road and Borax Road. Boron was the "capitol" of boron mining and "20 Mule Team Borox."

On 58E, I passed Edwards Air Force Base after the wind farm, and then some time later passed a sign for the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms. Twentynine Palms is just outside of Joshua Tree National Monument. I remember taking the girls there for a day of exploration when we lived in CA. Jeff brushed past a Jumping Cholla, and as is the way of this cactus, a piece "jumped" off and lodged on his hip. I was wearing only shorts and a bathing suit top, and the suit top was the only thing I could think to use to remove the spiny cactus. There was no one around, and the top protected my fingers enough that I could remove the piece of cholla. Believe me, I inspected the bathing suit top carefully for cactus spines before putting it back on. 

I drove Route 66 through Barstow and then picked up I-40E. This will be my road for most of the rest of my drive. Stopped at Barstow Station for a drink and then filled the gas tank. Cost me over $40. When I started out over a month ago, gas was about $3.69 a gal. Now it is over $4 a gallon. The station was a conglomeration of McD‘s, a candy store, liquor store, and a tourist souvenir shop, housed in an old RR station. 

Internet photo

I hadn’t realized how much Route 66 paralleled I-40. After Barstow, I-40 was sometimes a divided highway and sometimes a two-lane. CALDOT was working all along it, I think to make it all divided highway. The surface was often potholed and rough, so I switched lanes as often as possible to ride on the smoother one. 

Made a pit stop at a McDonald’s in Needles. Must be close enough to the NV border for that state to call it its own. There were gambling machines on the walls with people lined up to play them. The temp in Needles was only 97°F. When we drove through on our way to California in the 70s, we stayed at a motel in Needles. The temperature was over 100°F after dark, something we had never experienced before. We took a family midnight swim in the pool. 

I saw two tall dust devils today, whirling along beside the road. The landscape changed from Mojave Desert sand and scrub, to taller scrub and sage, to deserty scrub with small Joshua Trees, and finally, in Flagstaff, AZ, to mountain pines. 

Just like the ones I saw but this is an Internet photo

Joshua Tree (Internet)

Ordered a medium thin-crust pizza from Pizza Hut for dinner and probably tomorrow‘s lunch as breakfast is part of my hotel bill. It should be here anytime now, so I‘ll sign off and get ready.