Road Trip....

Some of you may have been wondering where I've been for the last couple of weeks. Arden and I took a road trip to California to visit friends and family and to do some sightseeing. We were gone 11 days - got home yesterday evening around 6:30pm. What a great time.

We left here on Tuesday, the 20th in the afternoon. Got a later start than we intended but had to board the dogs and take care of some things and the time just disappeared. We drove until about 11pm and stopped in a rest area in West Texas to sleep for a few hours. When we woke up we drove through the beautiful (a little humor) city of El Paso, Texas, and into Las Cruces, New Mexico, for breakfast. After Starbucks we headed across the desert.

About halfway across Southern New Mexico is a small ghost town that was called "Steins." I think it used to be a tourist attraction but now it's fenced in and mostly abandoned. Someone still lives there (there was one house and a guy working on his pickup) but there were no tours or signs or anything.I took a couple of pictures. The first one is the old Mercantile store. The second speaks for itself...

We drove into Arizona a short time later, headed for Scottsdale, where we had two free nights at the Scottsdale Villa Mirage resort. We got those when we were in Las Vegas last year and decided to use them on this trip just to break up the drive. 

We stopped at a couple of rest areas in Arizona. The first had this garden of yucca plants in front of the restroom building....

The second, about 40 miles East of Tucson, is built in the middle of this really amazing rock display (for lack of something better to call it.) They are on both sides of the road but only for a distance of about half a mile.

We also began seeing cacti of various varieties - something we both like. And driving into Tucson we began seeing the infamous Saguaros....

That night we were really tired after only a few hours of sleep in the rest area. We had eaten on the road so we just enjoyed our studio apartment room and went to bed early. The next morning we got up and went for a walk around the area then returned to the room for some of our favorite coffee. (We take our coffee pot on the road with us because we have yet to find any coffee in a restaurant, coffee shop or hotel that compares to Bustelo.)

We went to breakfast in a place called "First Watch" just down the street from the hotel. Arden got oatmeal dressed up with pecans, apples, brown sugar and bananas. The waitress said it came with milk and Arden told her since I always order milk she would give hers to me. (She's just that kind of wife.) So I didn't order a glass of milk with my breakfast. 

The waitress brought our food and Arden's milk. It didn't take me long to figure out I might want a little more...

After breakfast we did a little shopping and some sightseeing. Scottsdale is actually a very nice town. Not too crowded and mostly modern. We went into the historic district and while there wasn't much there that interested us (mostly shopping, restaurants and art museums) we did find a place to stop and have a beer on a patio with fans that blew a mist throughout to keep it cool. (It was about 100 degrees.)

We saw a couple of interesting businesses in the local area. The first was called the "Morning Squeeze". All this time I thought it was something else...

While walking back to the car we saw this place. We decided we didn't really want to know what they sold....

We went back to the hotel for a while then went to a wonderful Italian restaurant for dinner. It was a large, two-story place with dark wood and white linen tablecloths. The staff wore black pants and white shirts. It was far more elegant than our attire but they welcomed us anyway. And after I saw several other people dressed even less formally than we were it didn't matter. The food was excellent and our waiter was top notch. 

We got a good night's sleep, full of great Italian food, and got up and walked in the morning before getting on the road again. In the area around our resort were several other resorts and all were perfectly landscaped with cacti, yuccas, jacaranda trees and all kinds of flowering plants. It was beautiful and walking before it got too hot was great.

We headed West later that morning, again, later than we wanted to leave. We were headed for Lompoc on the Central Coast - supposedly an 8 hour drive. We stopped in Palm Springs just to see it and were rather disappointed. The exit for Palm Springs, the "jewel of the desert" was unbelievable. This is it. (Be sure to open it up so you an really see it in all its glory...

The city itself was no more remarkable than any other. Shops and restaurants but no different than anyplace else I've been. I know there are resorts that are pretty spectacular but you have to know where they are. (In contrast, we went through Beverly Hills on Monday and everything there is luxurious.)

We ended up going straight through Los Angeles on I-10 so I could take Arden up the Pacific Coast Highway - a beautiful albeit slower drive. We got to L.A. right at rush hour on a Friday so we made really bad time once we hit San Bernardino. It took about an hour and a half to get to the coast from there. And traffic on the PCH was heavy as well. But it was as beautiful as I remember.

We went up through Santa Barbara and on up highway 101 to the Lompoc exit.

As I braked to a stop we heard an awful grinding noise in the left rear wheel. I knew the brakes weren't bad - I had them checked before we left. But the noise was real. And since there is nothing for miles in any direction at that particular exit I had no choice but to drive on into Lompoc, about 18 miles away. The noise was only audible when we stopped and started - nothing while we were moving over about 10 mph. But it needed to be checked.

We drove into Lompoc without a problem and stopped at Walgreen's. Arden needed a couple of things and I took a moment to remove the left rear wheel and see what I could see. The hub was extremely hot and I couldn't get it off. So I put the wheel back on and asked a clerk in Walgreen's if he knew a good mechanic. He suggested one just down the street. We stayed in a hotel near the mechanic so I could go there first thing in the morning. We bought Chinese food and went to the room, happy to be there but concerned about what was wrong with the van.

To be continued....