A Year in a Car For No Apparent Reason

I’ve taken about 2500 pictures this trip and am working now in getting it down to just a few that are actually good. With the results I’ve gotten from what I’ve gone through so far I figure I might end up with as many as 50 that are worth keeping. Here’s a couple from my drive out to Colorado at the start of this trip:

Both these pictures were taken from a rest stop in Utah. I believe I was on highway 70 at this point, though it might still have been the 15.

I haven’t been to all the states yet, but Utah just might have the best views from their rest stops. They are the sort of views that always make me grateful for the interstate highway system and glad I’m not traveling in a covered wagon across the deserts.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t yet bought a tripod so even though I was there a little later during a great sunset the low light pictures I took didn’t really come out very well. I guess I’ll just have to go back someday… What a shame.

I’ve been getting the chance to play around with my new camera on this trip and hopefully as I continue I’ll be able to up that ratio of 50 decent pictures out of every 2500.

More pictures coming as I get them sorted.

I’ve made it to Las Vegas where I’ll be for the next week visiting with a friend, starting up work again, and (next weekend) attending the New Media Expo.

This means that I’ll finally get all the pictures I’ve been taking sorted through and the good ones posted here. For now though I have a couple pictures I took earlier this evening while waiting for the AAA guy to come bring me some gas because I’d run out on Highway 93 in Nevada. Yes, that’s right, my little Prius ran out of gas.

In my defense I don’t think that’s completely true. According to the odometer I should have been able to make it another 80 miles or so. I should have had another 2 gallons left. I think it must have been that the gas was so low that for some reason it wasn’t getting to the engine. I don’t know what the outtake set up is on the gas tank, but that’s my current theory.

At any rate, I got stuck on the side of the highway and luckily had cell phone reception and a free trial version of the AAA “Plus” membership that includes a couple (in this case 5) gallons of gas brought out to you if you’re a dumbass and didn’t fill up in the last gas station for the next 90 miles.

The second picture should give you a good idea of exactly where in the middle of nowhere I was. It was empty pretty much the entire 90 miles between Ash Springs and Vegas. While talking to the dispatcher I had to walk about ten minutes to find a marker that would give a good idea of where I was. Even after walking that far I didn’t actually make it to a sign (though I could see one way off in the distance) but someone pulled over and was able to give me directions to pass on.

So I ate my dinner and took pictures, and now I’ve learned my lesson. Don’t try to go more than 450 miles on one tank even if I technically should have enough gas to do it. Here is my favorite picture of the evening:

Has nothing to do with travel, but I’m going to post about it anyway.  Well, actually since it’s what I worked on when I was sitting Yellowstone waiting for the geysers to go off I suppose it’s slightly related.

At any rate, here’s pictures of the skirt I just finished sewing tatting on to.  Still haven’t actually worn it though.  As you can see, it’s a bit wrinkled and could probably use a washing.

The front:

The back (There is another strip on the right.  It’s hard to see because it’s red):

Close up of the design:

Close up of the pattern for the tatters who want to see how it’s made:

I think the pattern came from the web.  I’ll have to look through my printouts and figure out where I got it.  I liked that pattern a lot and think it’s the one I’ll modify for a tablecloth.

Not very exciting for the non-crafters out there, but since I figure it took me about 70 hours for the whole project I’m happy to have finally finished it.

Ahh, that’s why I’m traveling. What a gorgeous road and I never knew about it.

I headed out of Los Angeles on the 5 freeway on Thursday night and stayed in Taft, CA. In the morning I stumbled upon the Taft Oil Museum while getting lost trying to leave the city in the right direction. It’s a really lovely museum. It focuses more on the history of the town rather than oil specifically, but since the town started as an oil mining town it still makes sense to call it an oil museum. Eventually there will be a replica oil mining camp from the buildings on the ground. Most of those were closed while was there so I just enjoyed wandering around the main museum.

Driving around Taft, the area reminded me of what I suspect Los Angeles must have looked like in it’s early history. Low mountains surrounding a flat plain dotted with oil derricks. The scene above is near the beginning of highway 58, the route I was taking to get from the 5 to highway 1 along the coast. A fabulous road to start off the trip with. And the perfect example of the happy cows of California that are suppose to produce the best cheese. It seemed appropriate to stop and have lunch, (which did include cheese), on the side of the road near these cows. They were all a little concerned about my presence there, but it was fun to watch the young ones playing.

Further along the road, the buffalo couldn’t care less that I’d stopped. They stayed right up next to the fence making sure they got every blade of grass. I’d never seen buffalo up close, so I stuck around and took pictures here too. Anything really to break up the driving some. This was a long day as far as mileage covered since I wanted to skip anything that could be seen on a weekend trip from Los Angeles and I wanted to get up to the Bay area while it was still the weekend and I could visit with friends easily.

I’ve just realized I didn’t upload any pictures of Soda Lake, the whole point of taking this route between the 5 and the 1. I’ll have to add one on a later post, but it’s quite an interesting spot. It’s in the northern top of Carrizo National Monument, an area that is shaped by the San Andreas fault, which runs through it. A long time ago, (a quick google search isn’t giving me any dates, so you’ll have to get vague knowledge), much of what’s now California was covered by the ocean. That ocean shaped the land that we see now, (and the ancient sea life caused the oil deposits).

Carrizo National Monument and Soda Lake is a spot that I think I will have to visit again on a weekend trip from Los Angeles to explore more. For that first day however it was on to Highway 1 and the Big Sur.

Much has been written about the California coastline and the drive along Highway 1.  It was a great drive for the sunset, but, of course, when you driving that winding road it takes quite a while to do. I stopped when it got dark and enjoyed it again in the morning light. I will not even attempt to do it justice here. I’ll just brag about the view outside my window when I woke up:

Below, you can just barely see the spot where I stayed, way off in the distance. It was the furthest curve of the coastline in this picture.

Along the way I listened to the start of Kevin Starr’s history of California as a book on tape. Very interesting focus a mental understanding of the history while driving around the state and focusing a mental picture of what it encompasses physically as well.

It was all along gorgeous roads, but quite a lot of driving for the first day. I enjoyed spending the last two days hanging out with friends in the bay area and am going to be doing the same thing for the next couple days as well. After that heading off north to spend some time in Point Reyes in Marin County. One of my favorite places in the US.

I’ve been sitting here at the Tucson library for the last two hours enjoying the wifi, but unable to login to post here until I was right about to leave and look for some lunch.So forgive me, but this will be quick. I’ll do a couple more complete posts when I get back to San Diego, (in less than a week!)

After leaving Flagstaff for second time I headed south. I passed though the little town of Pine which Pam recommended to me for the handmade ice cream and antique stores. Sadly, the ice cream shop was closed on Wednesdays and I’m not really interested in antiques. But I did get some blue cheese and tomatoes and that made for a nice lunch later.

Spent the afternoon at Tonto Natural Bridge State Park, which was very pretty and a nice break from all the driving. I have no especially good pictures uploaded though, so you’ll just have to follow the link to see it. I’m finding I don’t know how to take decent (moving) water pictures with my little point and shoot.

Slept in a little town along the 60. There was much driving involved in these two days. My memory is a bit fuzzy. The next day’s big adventure was a stop in Pietown for an early lunch of peanut butter pie. Quite tasty. Pretty much the rest of the day was spent driving with a short stop to sit in the back on the van and wait for a break in the cars on the road so I could record the narration for my interview with Dr. Gillette.

I’m pretty sure there were also stops along the way for reading and napping. It all meant that I got to the VLA right before sunset when they close. But, of course, that meant I got to take both sunset and sunrise pictures of the telescopes.

The telescopes are amazing. And it’s awesome to just be driving along and then suddenly be driving through them. The array (22 miles in diameter) is split by the road and there are cows and other animals wandering near them. I hung out at the visitor’s viewpoint and watched the sun set then headed out to find a place to stay for the night. The best place that didn’t involve a vast amount of driving was a pullout area with camping tables where I got checked up on by a passing patrolman, but other than that no problems. Next morning I woke up early, sat at the view point again and wrote for a while until the VLA opened for visitors. It was a cold windy morning but the rain didn’t start until after I’d finished wandering around the campus.

The VLA is in the middle of nowhere, (of course, that’s part of why the spot was chosen), but I’d definitely recommend a stop there. It’s a reasonable side trip from Albuquerque, especially if you combine it with Bosque del Apache Natural Wildlife Refuge which I went to next.

The refuge was recommended by Dr. Gillette. It was GORGEOUS.

There’s a 13.5 mile driving loop around a couple of the marshes that I biked around. Took a bit longer than I expected so I finished it in the dark. (The map up at the visitor’s center also claimed the road was paved, which it is very much not, so that slowed me down some too.) It was nice to finally be back on my bike since I think it’d been about 5/6 months since I’ve done any riding. Still I’m ashamed to admit my legs were sore for the rest of the night. 13.5 miles shouldn’t have done that, though I was working against a tough headwind for about half the ride.

After Bosque del Apache I drove on up to Albuquerque. Possibly my favorite day of the trip. Definitely my favorite day of solo-sightseeing.

I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for Albuquerque. It’s just after 3 and I haven’t had lunch yet I may not get around to it until I’m back in San Diego, but I promise flood of posting during the few days I’ll be there.