Preview of the East leg

I had lunch today at Pops with a couple of guys from my office. While we were there, we slipped down the road to the Round Barn for a look at things to come when we make the Route 66 trek east to Chicago later this year. Can't wait!

The return trip

Thursday morning we fired up Joan (Garmin) and told her to take us home. Two days and 18 hours of uneventful (and, by comparison, boring) driving later, we made it. Not as much sightseeing as the trip out, but we did stop in a much less snowy Seligman for lunch. The Roadkill Cafe has a fun ambiance, and great food.


As we saw on the way out when we were forced onto it, the interstate is a different world. Much faster travel, but all about the destination, not the journey. Bobby Troupe's song turned out to be totally right:


"If you ever plan to motor West,
travel my way, take the highway that's the best.
Get your kicks on Route 66!"

Twentynine Palms and Joshua Tree National Park

When you've finished a road trip on Route 66 to the West coast, and are 1,500 miles from home, what do you do? In our case, you go visit your son for his birthday! Twentynine Palms is about 3 hours East of Santa Monica, so after enjoying the pier and the park we headed back into the desert.

We got to have dinner with Nick on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, and spent some time on Wednesday driving through the Joshua Tree National Park. We didn't see much wildlife - just a few small lizards and a couple of roadrunners - but the scenery was beautiful.

The wind farms in California dwarfed the ones we saw in Texas

One of the millions of Joshua Trees the park is named after

Joshua Tree National Park is a big destination for rock climbers. Click on this picture to see where I've added arrows showing the climbers.

A breathtaking vista that pictures can't do justice. In the distance is San Jacinto Peak, with Palm Springs at its base. The line running across the middle is the San Andreas Fault.

Nick got to spend his birthday with Flat Alix!