Down Old Mexico Way

San Ysiedro to Twentynine Palms CA via Tijuana (12/8)

After we were thwarted by the rain yesterday, we woke up only a stone’s throw from the Mexican border and walked over for the afternoon. To enter Mexico, you go through a couple of turnstiles, but there are no checks of any kind to enter the country. We were short on time, so we headed for the tourist area and walked around for a couple hours. We found a low-key restaurant (the one that didn’t have a bunch of people outside trying to get us to come in), sat watching a soccer game, and quickly took in as many stereotypical Mexican foods as possible: chips and salsa, tacos, huaraches, a margarita, aqua fresca, and we were even treated by the owner to a sample of tequila. At passport control on the way back, we were one of the few Americans passing through and attracted a bit more scrutiny, but we made it back without any problems.

Then…we headed back east for the last time (!). We drove through the desert, stopping at a rather run-down motel in Twentynine Palms, which lays at the entrance of Joshua Tree National Park. I was expecting a laid-back hippy-ish sort of town, but the largest Marine base in the US in located outside of the town, so there were more crewcuts than dreadlocks at the local pizza joint.
-M

SoCal

Ventura, CA to San Ysida, CA (12/7):

A quick trip to the Channel Islands National Park Visitor's Center allowed us to technically check the Channel Islands off our national park list. The islands themselves are only accesible by boat, which was not running today, and we didn't really want to spend any more time hanging around in the area, so we'll have to make it to those islands sometime in the future.

The goal had been to spend the afternoon in Tijuana, but we underestimated (misunderestimated?) how far Ventura was from LA and how far LA was from San Diego. There was also a heavy downpour, so we spent the day driving, stopping just short of the border and staying on good old American soil for now.
-M

The Land of Race Car Ya-Yas

Bakersfield CA to Ventura CA (12/6):

Happily, Bakersfield did not smell like manure in the morning. Today's agenda was Los Angeles, and we started in Burbank (strip malls, big box stores) at a sports bar so Brad could watch the Cleveland-San Diego. Strangely, San Diego did not seem to be the hometown team, as there were almost as many Cleveland fans as there were San Diego. Most people seemed to be interested in the Cowboys-Giants game instead (go Giants!!) We then stopped by Hollywood where we walked about 2 blocks before we realized we weren't going to be able to muster much enthusiasm for the stars and hand prints in the sidewalk (though, there were a lot fewer hand prints than I thought there would be). We then headed to Ventura on the coast where we had Thai food. Our visit to Los Angeles is probably the equivalent of a visit to New York that only involves Times Square, but I'm confirming my feelings that this isn't a place I would want to spend any substantial amount of time.
-M

A Hazy Shade of Winter

Ridgecrest CA to Bakersfield CA via Sequoia/King's Canyon NP (12/5):

Ridgecrest improved a bit in the morning as the light revealed pretty-ish mountains in the distance. It was not improved by someone trying to burst through our door early in the morning, but luckily we had put a chair in front of it to prevent just such a thing. We headed north through the San Juaquin Valley, which does not have a lot to recommend it. Other than orange groves, it was kind of a desolate wasteland with lots of haze (pollution, I think) everywhere. In fact, I can't actually confirm we were in a valley because we couldn't see far enough for the mountains.

Our destination for the day was Sequoia/King's Canyon, two national parks right beside each other in the Sierra Nevadas. The parks are even more impressive in that they rise out of the nuclear winter of the valley. Sequoia contains a sequoia named General Sherman, the world's largest tree by volume. King's Canyon has a canyon that we didn't really see because it was getting dark and General Grant, a giant sequoia that was presidentially declared to be the Nation's Christmas Tree (not to be confused with the National Christmas Tree in DC). Brad and I walked on a tree and drove through a tree before heading back south, stopping in Bakersfield for the night, which smells like manure.
-M

Leaving Las Vegas

Las Vegas to Ridgecrest CA via Death Valley National Park (12/4):

We have had a great time in Las Vegas, though we didn't really think of ourselves as Vegas-type of people. We've been really surprised at how cheap Vegas can be (at least for us). When we were first making road trip plans, we figured we'd breeze through Vegas because we wouldn't be able to afford being there for much longer. When we looked at hotel prices (assuming that we'd have to stay far away from everything), we were shocked to find rooms in a Strip hotel/casino were the cheapest rooms we'd seen anywhere in America--about half of what we normally pay for a room. We figured there had to be a catch (expensive parking, weird fees), but so far so good. Although our hotel isn't quite at the same glamor level as some of the other casinos, we lucked out because it seems to be the "budget" casino. For example, most of the other casinos have $5 minimums on blackjack hands, which makes a dent in your money pretty quickly, but at our place you can play for $1. Obviously, Vegas gambling can be murder to a bank account, but Brad and I are both pretty conservative financially, so there's no real danger that we're going to go overboard.

We played the slots a bit too, though only the penny slots because the slots have terrible odds, so we didn't want to put too much into it. I won $20 at New York, New York (which we promptly cashed in and left--take that casinos!) We also were net positive (by $.02!) at Bellagio.

After four nights in Vegas, we left for points west. Our intended activity for the day was Death Valley, but we got a slow start in the morning and had some errands to run before leaving Las Vegas (cue Sheryl Crowe). We didn't make it to Death Valley until late afternoon, so we didn't have time to do anything beyond drive through, but the scenery was quite beautiful and way more mountain-y than I'd expected. Also unexpected was how un-desolate it is. We saw plenty of other cars, everything was well-signposted, and the distances didn't seem so far away. I'm sure it has quite a different feel in the 130-degree summers, but for now we can feel the hubris of modern travelers conquering the desert in our well-stocked Hyundai.

We're spending the evening in an out-of-the-way southern CA town that lacks charm. Surprisingly, it feels weird to be back on the road again. We spent 4 nights in Vegas, which is the longest amount of time we've spent in a single place since September. After having that nice little break in a plush room, it's hard to go back to roadside motels and not spending more than 15 hours in a place. Luckily, we've saved some of the most exciting parts of the road trip for this Southwestern sojourn since over three months on the road is starting to grow tiring.

Viva Las Vegas

Las Vegas (12/1 - 12/3):

In deference to local customs, we won't be blogging our four nights in Las Vegas.
-B

I got 48 states but Alaska ain't one

Springdale UT to Las Vegas NV (11/30):

En route to our date with Lady Luck in Las Vegas, we took a detour to Hoover Dam. When we first started talking about taking a road trip, the Hoover Dam often came up on the list of places to visit that would justify taking a road trip. It is in fact impressive, but it is also just a dam. There's a visitor's center (which we skipped because it was $$$), and you can walk across the dam and look down on it. From what we could tell, there's no place to look at it from straight on, so it's hard to get a full sense of it. It was also pretty crowded, and we only spent a little time there before heading onto Vegas.

View from the dam:


More on Vegas will follow in the coming days, but upon arrival, we were pleasantly surprised to find our hotel room to be large and comfortable. It was crazy cheap, so we were expecting a hovel, but it's probably about the nicest room we've had on the trip.

And finally, we reached a major milestone today: the road between Utah and Vegas passes briefly through Arizona, which marks the 48th state that we have visited on the road trip. We'll be passing back through Arizona in a couple weeks, but we've officially hit all the states in the continental US since September (and overall, since we've both been to Hawaii, we only have Alaska until we've visited every state in the Union.)
-M