Needles, California to Flagstaff, Arizona

As we were leaving Needles the temperature was around 100 degrees, and it was only mid morning.  A local informed us that the high for the day was going to be 112 degrees and last week the high was 126 degrees.  I find it hard to imagine living with those temperatures on a daily basis!  We were quite happy just knowing that on that day day, Friday, we would be climbing into higher elevations and just maybe finding cooler weather!

Not many miles down the road we were in Arizona, crossing Lake Havasu and into the city by the same name.  We saw signs directing us to London Bridge, that was tempting, but we had to stay on schedule with no side trips.

We noticed as we had traveled through different deserts that certain types of cacti were more common than in other regions of the hot dry land.  On Thursday we saw cholla cacti, today it was ocotilla.  The latter is a  shrub with long cane-like branched spiny stems which grow from a short trunk.  It can grow to 20 feet tall, but we saw only a few which had any length to them.

Until we drove into higher elevations, this was what we pretty much saw- large rocky prominences barren of any life except for the desert sage brush and cacti around it.

What a difference a few thousand feet make!.  This was around Kingman, and now we were seeing cattle in the fields as well as many signs warning that there may be elk on the road.  All we saw were deer placidly lying under shade trees.

Pictured above is the Kalibab National Forest.  Now we were at 6,000 feet elevation seeing pine and aspen trees.  A very nice change!  We soon arrived in Flagstaff and stopped for a grocery run.  I got the latter done while John did some research as to where we were going to park for the night. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that the temperature had changed, dropping down to about 65 degrees.  A storm had just passed through the area which also helped.  It is now monsoon season in the southwest, which runs from July to mid September.  Brief showers pop up in the late afternoon and night hours.  Probably explains why the desert areas looked fairly green for this time of the year.

We stopped  at Meteor Crater rv park for the night.  Off in the distance we could see a red rock wall.  Those same red boulders dotted the landscape around our motor home.   Not too far down the road was the Meteor Crater, which we had seen in the past.  About 50,000 years ago a meteor passed through the earth's atmosphere and crashed into a rocky plain with about an explosive force greater than 20 million tons of TNT.  This resulted in a giant bowled-shaped cavity.  Information provided by our park brochure.  The crater is impressive to see and if you have not seen it, put it on your bucket list!   Saturday we moved on to Albuquerque, New Mexico

Vista to Needles, California

On the road again and heading eastward.  Hated to leave Southern California but John does want to see the eclipse in Farmington Mo. on August 21.  We do have some miles to cover between now and then.  Before I show the scenes on our road trip today I want to comment that California is trying to get rid of plastic bags.  We were charged ten cents in all stores for the bags, so it was best to have our own.  Way to go California!  I get so disgusted seeing plastic bags blow along the highways!

 

It did not seem very long that we had left the San Diego area and were in the hills outside of Los Angeles.  Traffic was heavy and it was slow going for awhile.  Southern California certainly has a lot of natural beauty with its hills, mountains and canyons.

The countryside around Temecula is known as Southern California Wine Country.  You may notice mountains in the distance.  We were soon climbing our highest elevation for the day at Cajon Pass.  The elevation is 4, 190 feet.  Picture below was taken as we were coming down.

As we continued to head north on Interstate 15 we first drove through the San Bernardino National Forest, the first of many wilderness areas we would see during the course of the day.  Much of the region is uninhabitable.  It caused me to think of how our President Trump wants to seize similar government land in other areas for mining.  I shudder to think of all the national forests we have seen in our travels and imagine them being horribly scared as the mountains and hills of Colorado and West Virginia.  I pray that it does not happen and wiser heads will prevail!

Between Hesperia and Barstow we could see small forests of joshua trees.  Joshua Tree National Park is a bit southeast of this area, but we figured the same conditions (hot and dry) must be in this area for them to thrive.  If the picture looks a bit odd- I played with the lighting to help the trees stand out.

 

From Barstow we took Interstate 40 and most of our day was then in the Mojave Desert.  It was a hot day, with lots of clouds but no rain in sight.  However, we saw a rainbow!

There was a bright spot of sunlight on the mountain to the left of the rainbow.  Now I know how people came to think there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!  Very pretty.

Our day ended in Needles, California.  After a quick supper we walked down to the Colorado River.  Temperature now about 100 degrees with a strong wind.  John described it very aptly when he commented that it felt like we were blowing a hair dryer in our face!

Oceanside, California

Vista, Oceanside, and Carlsbad are small municipalities north of San Diego.  I don't think we gave them much consideration the last time we were here.  Maybe we were too busy exploring San Diego.  This time around, however, we have been checking out those three towns and enjoying them.

Pictured above is the Oceanside Municipal Pier, someone informed me that it is the longest wooden pier in California, its length being 1,954 feet.  Not sure if that is true.

Oceanside's welcome sign hangs at the edge of this beautiful park with large fountains in it.  In the background is the Oceanside city hall and off to the left is the town's library.

We were in Oceanside Saturday, and returned to it yesterday to tour Oceanside museum of art.  Certainly a small museum, but we enjoyed it very much.  The museum's main gallery features some 200 local artists.  Their work includes oil paintings as well as watercolor, photography, collage and sculpture.  Pictured below are some very realistic sunflowers.  This was done in bronze by Natalie Tyler in 2002.

   On the second floor of the museum are more works done in bronze, this exhibit runs to October 8.  The  title of it is "Meaning in Bronze".   This is VetArt, which uses bronze casting to teach art-making skills and create opportunities for people in the military to tell their personal stories.  As the museum explains it, the exhibit is "positive healing" for veterans and their communities.

Another part of this exhibit is called "A Time To Heal".   It is a collaboration between artist Trinh Mai, armed service participants, and photographer J.Grant Brittain.

A small group of veterans wrote letters to themselves reflecting on hardship and healing during workshops facilitated by the artist.  The letters they wrote were incorporated into the "war wounds" that the members created artistically using a variety of materials.

The third part of this exhibition may seem a bit creepy, but it was meaningful to me. The title is "Scared for Life".  The artist Ted Meyer has created graphic depictions of people's suddenly altered bodies and the resulting scars.  The wounded are not only veterans, but people who have been scarred by a variety of types of trauma, or by surgery.  I am a bit familiar with some of the surgical scars, having been a pediatric nurse.  Scars are shown of those children who needed surgery for  spinal bifida, scoliosis, and rhizotomy.  The artist must have been roaming a neurological ward!   Also, I did not know that in the past fraternities branded new members.  That scar is pictured above.  With each picture the story of how that person received his or her scar.is told and their journey of healing.  One parent wrote on how her child's scar affected her as a parent.  The artist also did a painting of his cat's amputated paws.  When his cat was declawed the wounds became infected necessitating amputation of two of his paws   The owner no longer wanted the cat so the artist took him in.  There was a lot more to this little museum than I was expecting!
We are leaving Vista tomorrow as we need to start moving eastward and back to the Midwest.

Carlsbad and La Jolla Cove

We have been to La Jolla in the past years when we visited our son Mike.  On Friday, a day after we had arrived here, we had a desire to see the Pacific coast and sea lions.  Driving south down the coastal highway sounded like fun.  But we had not anticipated the traffic and the crowds all trying to also get over to the sea shore.  It did take us longer than in previous years when we had been here in January or February!

We arrived by late afternoon.  Parking was a problem and we had to walk a fair distance to get over to the sea lion cove.  It was all worth it, however.

I think the sea lion above was telling his friend "come on in the water is fine"  The crowds here were also over whelming.  I felt for the sea lions when people got into their faces with cameras.  One man also got quite close to a nursing mom with his camera.

The mama pictured above found a safe place to nurse her baby for sure!

On our way home we stopped in Carlsbad.  Driving down the coast earlier we had seen this statue and were intrigued as to who it might be.  Maybe it was Carl for whom the town was named?  No, the statue was John Frazier.  He had a ranch in this area and, while drilling for some wells, found some artesian springs.  He discovered the water to be therapeutic for his chronic rheumatism. Soon Farzier would greet people at the railroad station with the water and say:  "alight, drink and be happy".  A hotel with a spa was built on the site where his statue now is- it later burned down.  The springs were not maintained during the Great Depression and were unused for 119 years.  Now it is being sold by the gallons, as you may see by the water tanks behind Frazier.  A  large truck pulled up while we were there and the advertisement on it noted that the artesian water is "Eden in a Glass", "Most Healthful", "anti-acid water, anti-oxident, soft, delicious, hydrating and therapeutic".   We had no gallon jug to fill up, just poured some into our cup from another man's jug.  Tasted like regular water, maybe a little bit off- tasting.
We also learned from further research that Karlsbad, Bohemia (now Czech Republic) tested the water and found it to be the same as the artesian water in their town.  Maybe that is how Carlsbad got its name- and it is a sister city to Karlsbad.  The statue was created in Europe by a renown sculptor and former mayor of Karlsbad. 

Vista, California

We arrived in this town last week and have been busy since that time.  Vista is a medium-size town in the San Diego metropolitan area.  John Frazier chose the city name in the late 1800s.  I will have more regarding John Frazier in another posting.  Vista was a farming community, following WW11 it grew primarily tomatoes, celery, and citrus.  And it became known as the " avocado capital of the world" in 1948.   Which brings me to the Avo Theater (actual name Avocado), where Beauty and the Beast was performed this past weekend. 

Yes, our son is performing in that musical, and his bio note is on a listing outside the theater- along with the names and bios of about 60 other cast members.  It is community theater, so many are not certainly professional actors, singers and dancers.  That being said, we saw the performance Saturday night  and enjoyed it very much.  Of course, it means a lot more when when you know someone performing in it!  Our son played the baker, a fork, and some other small roles.

Yes, that is him front and center, singing and dancing in the wonderful song "Be My Guest".  He enjoyed performing for the show ,but certainly is not considering quitting his day job anytime soon.
He is also pictured below on stage dressed as the village baker.

 The show had a small orchestra preforming for it, which also made the show quite good.  And if you are in the San Diego area next weekend, the show will still be running then.

We spent a fair amount of time in Vista over this past weekend, as that was the best place to meet up with Mike and hang out with him and our nephew David between shows.  David works for the Jet Propulsion Lab in Los Angeles and drove down here to spend the weekend with us.  It is coincidental that, what with David's interest in astronomy, there is the brewery "Wavelength" in Vista which has some telescopes sitting around.

The brewery advertises that here one can get their fill both of science and beer.  The owners are passionate about science and host a variety of science outreach presentations.  Unfortunately none of them were going on when we visited the brewery.

Vista is an interesting town to walk around in what with its small shops and street art on the corners.  Pictured above is the "Alley Art Man" who seems to be tending to his plants.  What bright red eyes he has!  Over the weekend we also visited a couple other small towns and also drove down the coast to La Jolla.  More on those adventures in my next posting.

Museum of Western Film History

While John was getting our rig ready to move on yesterday our neighbor, who as performing the same tasks on his trailer, spoke to John about his trip on the same highway.  Only difference was they were going north on the road and we were headed south.  The neighbor shared with us how much he and his wife enjoyed a film museum and encouraged us to also stop and tour it.
The beginning of our trip on highway 395 that day gave us some final glimpses of the Sierras.   However, there were more mountains up the road.  Before we came to them we saw signs giving directions to Manzanar, a national historic site.  Later at the museum we learned what that was all about.  The old high school in  Manzanar has an interpretive center with exhibits and audio visual programs related to the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during WW11.  As you may gather from my previous postings, history of that nature makes me furious.  And our nation never learns, just continues to treat people inhumanely in the name of protecting our national security.

On to more cheerful thoughts, like the highest mountains in our nation.  Somewhere in the range above is Mount Whitney and Mount Williamson, Mount Whitney being the highest at 1494 feet.

Above is a mural on the film museum building.  We at first drove past the museum, thinking that we would not stop.  Then we had second thoughts, and I am glad we did!   We did not realize it, but we had just traveled through the Alabama Hills where about 400-500 films and 1000 commercials had been filmed.   We saw the Portal Road as we drove into the town of Lone Pine, not realizing that a short drive on that road would take us up into the hills and where many westerns had been filmed.

 

  The museum has an extensive collection of artifacts, costumes, props, posters, and memorabilia from classic American Western films.  Also an antique camera car is on display.

 The heyday of westerns was primarily the years from the 1920s to the 1960s.  During the 1950s and 1960s westerns films were decreasing in numbers, but there were many western series being made for television. Science fiction movies as Star Trek 5, Ironman, Superman as well as foreign films as Gunga Din and Kim were also filmed in the Alabama Hills.   Pictured below is the dentist wagon from Durango Unchained.  There is also on display a copy of that movie script autographed by Quentin Terantino, as well as the director's chair.

And pictured below is the 1937 Plymouth that Humphrey Bogart drove half-way up Mount Whitney in the 1941 movie High Sierra.  It was also noted here that Ida Lupino had the measles while the filming was being done.

Many of the artifacts and costumes were very interesting.  Ever heard of a jerk jacket?

It is a vest with multiple pick points on it and is custom fitted for the actor or stunt person.  Cables or ropes are placed on the pick points and used for snatching, pulling or dragging a person for a stunt sequence.  John and I had to call it quits after about an hour in this museum, we still had many miles yet to cover for the day.  I must say it was a stop worth making!

 

Scenic Eastern Sierra By-Way

We left Carson City this morning on Highway 395.  Just had to find another title for this posting and keep it from being boring.  Our drive today was far from boring, I must say that this was the most scenic portion of this highway for us so far.  And it was very slow going for us today, with several summits from 7,000 to 8,000 feet.  Road construction also slowed us down.

Pictured above is Topaz Lake.  I think after this there were many signs warning us to watch for deer on the road as they are in the process of migration.  We  saw no  deer, probably wrong time of the day.

Through out the day we had many wonderful scenic surprises around every bend in the road, from towering rock formations,  and deep canyons to the snow covered Sierras.

In the lower elevations there were the sage desert plains.  Higher elevations were greener with pine and other varieties of trees.

It was at this summit, Devil's Gate, where we stopped for awhile so John could repair the steps of our rig- they were not retracting normally.  There is a historical marker here, which I then had time to read.  Apparently in 1844, in this area, John Fremont and his small band of half-starved men (including Kit Carson) had to abandon the howitzer (1500 pound gun) they had been dragging along  over deep snow.   After crossing the Sierra Nevada they then made it safely to their destination in Ca.

For some time, as we were coming down the summit, we followed a very pretty rushing mountain stream.  Snow is still melting and swelling every rivulet of water.

At the next summit we were able to look at the highway below and Mona Lake.

Mona Lake is called a saline soda lake.  It is a fascinating body of water with alkali flats and tufa towers, which are limestone formations in the water. The lake has no outlet, which creates a high level of salt in it.

 

After Mona Lake we noticed a strange cloud formation off in the distance.   Getting closer to the area we became suspicious that it was a forest fire because it was drifting more like smoke and had a brown color to it.  When we drove through Nevada last Saturday we smelled smoke and some of it even drifted over the highway.  Could see no fire, however.  Many forests fires have been reported in that state because of  hot and dry weather.  Am sure this probably also holds true for California.  We went through several small rain showers today, hopefully it will have some impact on the fires.
We only traveled 150 miles today, it was slow going but very enjoyable.

Carson City and Lake Tahoe

We certainly have learned a lot about the state of Nevada in the past two days!  Sunday we toured the train museum here in Carson City.  There we learned how important the railroad was for the mining industry in the state.  The wealth of Nevada's silver mines was  of the reasons for its swift acceptance as a state in 1864, as the 36th state of the union.  Nevada is also the sixth largest producer of gold in the world.  There are some other interesting aspects to this state, some of them perhaps not as important as gold and silver.  It is the driest state, not speaking in terms of alcohol, but water.  Nevada, along with California, Hawaii and Alaska has a higher probability of earthquakes than the rest of the states.  And that brings us to the capitol of Nevada, which we toured yesterday.

 

The capitol is pictured above.  It was built in 1871, however, it was totally gutted in 1974 because it was structurally unsound and a public safety hazard.  It would crumble in an earthquake.  The roof and interior details were removed and a reinforced concrete shell was bonded to the existing exterior wall.  Then the interior was rebuilt using the items salvaged from the original.

This statue of a Native American woman caught my eye immediately as I entered the capital.  She is Sarah Winnemucca, (1844-1881).  According to the information provided, she was a defender of human rights, educator, and author of the first book by a native woman.  On the second floor is a display by the Nevada Woman's History Project.  This group has researched women's accomplishments in Nevada, and they were responsible for the placement of the statue in the capitol.  Nevada may have had all male governors, but it ranks second in the nation having the most female legislators.  Women could vote in state elections by 1916- Nevada was one of the first states leading in that.  It was not until 1920 when they could vote in Federal elections.

Pictured above is the senate chamber.  Nevada is one of only a few states to have their legislative building outside of the capitol.  The capitol building lacked the room for the legislative body so the senate and assembly moved to a new building in 1971.  There was not much to see in this building, so we quickly moved on to grab some lunch and head out of town to Lake Tahoe.

Lake Tahoe is a short drive from Carson City.  We were that close and just could not pass up a chance to see again one of the prettiest lakes in all of North America  (it is the third deepest at 1,600Ft.).  We also were there to meet up with our niece Rebecca who works on the zip line in Heavenly Village.  Fortunately she was just coming down off the mountain from a day of work when we met up with her.  Her family; brothers, sister, and parents also just happened to be arriving in South Tahoe city that day and we were all able to get together for a meal out.  It is one of the perks of being on the road,  there is always somewhere family to meet up with.

Continuing on Highway 395 through Nevada and California

We were warned by owners of the trailer park which we stayed in Thursday that we would not reach Reno by Friday.  And they were correct.  That highway is not one to travel very fast on - especially with our 37 foot motor home towing a car and not powered by diesel.  As we left Burns there were signs indicating that for the next 90 miles there would be no services as gasoline stations for 90 miles.  Signs also warned us that there may be cattle on the road.  We passed a town named Wagon Tire, population of 6.  And a road called Poverty Basin Road.  At least someone had a sense of humor.  After miles of sage brush plains dotted with black rocks and cattle we had a surprise.
We first saw large sand dunes and then what looked like a dried lake bed.  Checking our AAA tour book we learned that we were at the base of Abert Rim, one of the highest exposed fault scarps (steep slopes) in North America.  The 2000-foot-high escarpment is great for hang gliding.

And pictured below is Lake Abert.  A very remote lake, with no signs of recreational water activity.

Highway 395 also brought us through the the Goose Lake recreational area, into California.  That lake, as well as other lakes in the region, were vestiges of prehistoric Lake Chewaucan. That probably explains the dry sea beds and alkali flats which we had been seeing.  We had no choice as to where to stop for the night, there was only one trailer park in Likely, California.  The town  had a couple of buildings; "Most Unlikely Cafe" and a community church.   The trailer park was out of town a distance, in a remote area surrounded by cattle ranches.  The travel guide said it was a golf resort, besides a park for trailers and motor homes.  How likely was that, we wondered, as we drove up to the park and saw no golf courses, or the presence of a restaurant  that was supposed to be there.

 

 After we had parked our rig and got settled for the night, I walked the perimeter of the park.  Found the golf course and the restaurant which was closed for the day.  No activity anywhere, however.  I still wondered if the "resort" part of this park was a thing of the past.  But no, as I was again hiking around the park the next morning, a parade of golf carts passed me heading to the links.

I thought we were going to have the same scenery on Saturday as the past two days, but the land along the highway started greening up with plant life other than sage and juniper.  What a beautiful sight to see fields covered with black-eyed susans!   We started now seeing fields covered with a variety of crops.  We also noticed that the highway was following a creek.

We also started seeing what we thought was the backside of the Sierra Mountains, covered still with small patches of snow on top.  We passed up Reno and went 30 miles further to Carson City, just for the reason that we wanted to see the capital of Nevada.  It is a few degrees cooler there, also.