December 1, 2013

• Epic Road Trip, Day 18, part 1

  Today was the day to leave the comforts of Mom and Dad’s house and pool, and head off to see new places. Yes, there were a lot of rocks in the trunk of my car, thanks for asking.

  

  There were a couple of virtual caches I wanted to stop at, but we didn’t have a lot of time for stops as this was one of our biggest driving days we had planned. We wanted to drive in Nevada and through Death Valley and make it to our camp site in Lone Pine, CA before nightfall. Dreaming. There was a lot to see, and our first stop was Ash Fork, AZ.

  

  We found our caches and stopped at a little museum to use their restroom and browse for a few minutes. The lady there asked if we were going to be taking Route 66, since Ash Fork is a jumping on/off place for Route 66. I said, “No, we came all this way just to see Ash Fork.” She started dumbly at me for a moment and then found her voice to stutter, “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anyone say that before.”

  We continued on, but after a while took a side trip for another geocache and found ourselves on Route 66. It’s an interesting place we found ourselves.

  

  Loved, loved, loved the marquee on this drive-in.

  

  

  

  We drove on Route 66 for a time, past a brothel with scantily clad mannequins waving from a second floor balcony, then turned left to get back to the main road we’d been on. Along the way Kendrah yelled, “Stop and get a photo, Mom! That cloud makes that mountain look like an erupting volcano!” And, seriously, how can I resist something like that? I pulled over and got this shot.

  

  We stopped at this sign for Chloride because there was a cache there. We didn’t go into town although it sounded interesting, but like I said, lotta road ahead of us.

  

  Thankfully there was another cache up ahead — a girl’s gotta pee once in a while, you know? — so we stopped here. Unfortunately there were no restrooms, but there were cool bridges.

  

  And grasshoppers the side of small birds! Can you see it? It’s well cammoed with the branch.

  

  We took some time under the bridge….um, you know, looking around and …stuff…. and then had a bit of target practice. Under the bridge was a few degrees cooler, which makes a difference when it’s over 100. Wish I had a temperature gauge on this trip! Back in Colorado Springs, my sister had said that Death Valley might get closed down because the temps for this week were supposed to get over 130. We were semi-prepared with an alternate route.

  We shot our way out of the park with bridges and no rest rooms (well, sorta).

  

  And made our way back to the road, feeling quite refreshed but ready for blasting A/C.

  

  We made our way to Hoover Dam. What a site that is. We drove to the Nevada side, parked and walked up to the bridge overlooking the dam and walked back to Arizona, but we didn’t get all the way across before Kendrah decided she was having heat stroke and a dizzying case of vertigo. I took her picture anyway.

  

  And made her wait while I looked down.

  

  And get more photos of the dam. La la la la.

  

  Fine, ok, let’s go back to the car. Oh, wait, one more photo.

  

  The artsy railing and walkway were interesting. There were a lot of people sweating with us here and I had to wait for people to slowly move out of my way to get photos.

  

  Then, from the comfort of the car’s A/C interior, we drove across the dam itself and got a few photos from a different perspective. In the first photo, you can see the bridge we’d been standing on earlier. Waaaaayyyyy up there.

  

  

  We were too late to take a tour at the M&M factory (they close at noon) but we stopped for a wander through the cactus garden.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  We went into the factory and approached a sample station. The woman behind the partition asked, “Milk, white or dark?” I said, “Oh, yes please!” She stood there for a moment just looking at me so I said, “Um, okay, uh, milk.” She handed me a sample that might have filled one M&M shell on a warm day and I thanked her and we moved on. Not impressed with the store offerings, I didn’t even buy a postcard, but we did get some photos outside.

  

  

  

  Feeling pressed for time, we headed for another cache or two, but that will have to wait for part 2.

  • 7:46 pm
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