We departed Redding on Friday, June 19 at 4pm all souls accounted for and two hours ahead of schedule … 4 people, 2 dogs, good attitudes and 919 miles to go. We all happily waved goodbye to Redding.
We’d agreed ahead of time that it was best for the dogs if we stopped every two hours. Me being the anal-retentive person that I am, I had laid out our journey in detail on Map Quest weeks before and had copies for the whole crew to follow along. I find that everyone having a map practically eliminates the “how far til” and “are we there yet” and “when do we eat” syndromes. An old stand-by works. Our first scheduled stop was Dunnigan but the dogs were already squirming by the time we hit Willows so we opted to stop early in Williams where we stretched and watered the pups and then hit the local Denny’s,
We were five minutes down the road when we hit our first wall. The kids had a cold war in the backseat over who-knows-what and that didn’t dissipate until we hit the next stop.
Next stop Westley! A quick bit of gas, a McDonald’s potty break, a water spigot for the dogs and we were back on our way.
We hit our destination of the Super 8 in Kettleman City by 11pm. It had looked nice enough on the internet and the view as we pulled in seemed to confirm that but the reality on the inside was nothing like its billing. It was like a motel room out of a scary movie. We checked for peepholes, cameras and men dressed as their mothers a la Psycho before finally turning the air conditioner on full blast and hitting the sack. The temperature was 80+ when we bedded down and I’d say it was 90+ by the next morning. The air conditioner made a lot of noise but that’s all it did.
Next morning we had planned to sleep in until check out at 11am so that we’d be traveling through the hottest part of our journey that night. Arguably the hottest part of the journey turned out to be sleeping in that motel room. I woke up at 6am feeling like a hot dog rotating in one of those 7-11 cookers. Knowing it was insanely early I tried to be polite and keep quiet. I took the dogs for a walk and entertained myself as best I could but by 8:00 had started making noise sufficient to wake people up. We hit the local Carl’s Jr. for some breakfast burritos and were on the road by 10am.
Whew!
In no time at all we were on the grapevine. I have bad childhood memories of the grapevine and as a result I view a trip over it much like the early California settlers probably viewed a trip over the Sierra Nevadas but probably less optimistically. I’m always convinced we’ll end up stranded and cannibalizing each other. We stopped in Lebec, just before the climb, gassed up, bought drinks and snacks for us and hotdogs for the pups (maybe it was the motel room cookery that inspired that, I dunno’) and let the truck cool down before starting our ascent.
It wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d worried it would be. My sphincter factor ran high until we reached the apex and I believe I left half-moons shapes in the upholstery with my fingernails all for nothing because the temp gauge never even fluttered past its regular mid-point. We hit the flats without incident and soon enough we were in Pasadena driving through a pounding thunderstorm of biblical proportions and making our one and only u-turn of the entire trip.
An hour later we hit a wall …
We took the exit for our scheduled stop and Fred pulled into the first gas station we came to. We were three hours ahead of schedule and in the middle of the ghetto. The rain was gone and the temp was at least 100. We were supposed to eat dinner at this stop but it was only 2pm and no one was hungry yet. Now what? Here’s the truncated version of what happened next at the gas pump.
It’s ok, we’ll eat later let’s just get gas. No, let’s go, we still have half a tank. No, because it gets desolate after this stop. There’ll be plenty of places to stop. No there won’t. Yes there will. No there won’t. Yes there will. You don’t know what you’re talking about! No, you don’t know what you’re talking about! Well I looked it up on Map Quest did you!? Shut up!! No, you shut up!!! No, you shut up!!!! Well you’re walking back when we run out of gas in the middle of nowhere! No you’re walking back! No you are!! No you are!!! No you are!!!!Kindergartners exhibit more wit than the two of us in an argument.
We got gas, the dogs peed and we didn’t talk to each other for the next two hours. Harrumph and fine!
Having screwed up our last scheduled stop by being three hours ahead of schedule we now had no plan. We drove through the hot nothingness for a while passing Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Indio and Banning as we watched the scenery get more and more desert-like. We finally took an exit (Blythe?) not too far from the border. We got lucky with that stop stop because it turned out to be a little oasis in the desert with a quickie mart, a gas station, a water spigot for the pups and, in the category of what the hell, a museum dedicated to General Patton. We watered the dogs and ourselves and hung out for about 20 minutes before driving past a bunch of the General’s WWII tanks and heading out to the freeway. Rejuvenated from our stop we were pleased to find ourselves in the Joshua Tree National Forest. You know that part of the world where it makes sense to start looking for the signs that say “world’s largest ball of string – next exit”. We looked hard but never saw a Joshua tree much more than 2’ tall.
Let me digress here for a moment and just say that “forest” is a serious misnomer for this particular stretch of country. Actually, a more appropriate name might be the Dr Seuss Tree National Forest for every bit of foliage reminded me of the illustrations in his many, many books. I wondered if any of what I was seeing had provided inspiration for the books.
So much for the “forest”.
The border came as an abrupt surprise. No real ballyhoo in advance. There was simply a road sign with an Arizona flag on it, then a fruit check station for those entering California --- apparently, Arizona doesn’t care what fruits you bring into their state because there was no stop for us --- and then a much bigger sign and a much bigger flag and, bingo, we were over the border. What it lacked in pageantry it made up for in emotion as we all got quiet saying goodbye to California … for now.
Goodbye Franchise Tax Board
Goodbye CHP
Goodbye Ahhhnold
Goodbye fruit police… lol.
Suddenly Arizona license plates and saguaro cactus surrounded us. We all marveled over how quickly and seamlessly that transition happened. Wow.
Not far after the border, we pulled off in the city of Quartzsite. The highway sign advertising a family restaurant is what drew us off the highway. Although it was still early, the restaurant was closed and so was everything else. Chris is seriously spooked by desert towns that appear to be deserted and I was having my own visions of the whole town closing their businesses for the day so they could load their pockets with stones and participate in the local lottery. Our appetites on hold we drove around and surveyed the little town unsuccessfully for restaurants. The movie “Silent Hill” came up in the conversation as we beat it back to the highway pronto. We rationalized that we weren’t scared. It was just that we were now only two hours away from our destination anyway and we could eat in Phoenix.
It was still light when we arrived on Saturday. We could see downtown Phoenix from miles and miles away. Evidence that Phoenix and its surrounding areas really are flat. We headed directly for the apartment. I was the only one who had seen it so it was mandatory that everyone have a first look and see what they’d signed up for.
It wasn’t exactly like the unit I’d walked through a few weeks ago. It seems that by opting for an end unit I lost the window seat in the master bedroom and an extra 2 or so feet of balcony. Oh well. I got brand-spanking new carpeting I wasn’t expecting and that made up for it.
We spent about an hour scoping the apartment and the various amenities in the complex and then headed for the Homewood Suites to settle in.
What a nice surprise! Our room was a gorgeous, fully decorated, fully equipped one-bedroom apartment with a complete kitchen. In this case reality outdid the internet. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. We’d arrived intact, on time and with no real scars or scares and all of tomorrow to rest and renew before the first Monday at work and the arrival of Stage 2 … the moving van.
Stay tuned …
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