Heading home

We took off from Goodyear after a lovely week with Jan and Gary (minus the flat of course), which included side trips to Wickenburg (cowboy town) and Sedona (home of Red Rock Fever) on Saturday morning about 10:45. Our first thought was to go through Palm Springs, stay the night there and traverse LA on Sunday morning. But we opted to go north to Lake Havasu City which is the adopted home of the original London Bridge and head west on I-40. This trip takes you through the California desert...home of Twenty Mule Team Borax, Edwards AFB, and numerous miles of sagebrush and rugged denuded mountains. This is tough country.

We stayed in Barstow, CA Saturday night which is a pleasant town in the middle of this entire region and the only one of any size. It is a rail-head and our nice motel was located right next to the multi-track line that is the main artery between LA and who knows where. We heard engines roar all night long. We traveled about 350 miles Saturday...only 1K to go.

Got up early this morning and headed west on I-40 and eventually CA 58 which runs through the mountains to Bakersfield. B-field is the beginning of the San Joaquin Valley and has orange groves and lots of farm land surrounding it. Just a few miles east is the I-5 which is our main artery to OR. This route completely skirts LA and we did not miss the traffic around I-10 and I-210 that was very heavy when we came through. If we come back next year with the motor home, we will go over the desert and Lake Havasu City, I think.

We headed north about noon and ended our day in Redding, CA which is 650 miles north and west of where we started from in the morning. En route I talked to Jeff and Mary who were coming home from church and to Gary who was just coming into Gallop, NM on his way to deliver a load of blankets and coats to an Indian Mission at St. Bonaventure (not to be confused with the Catholic College basketball power.)

We yacked at Amy too...giving her a heads up we were on our way back north...in the shadows of Mt. Shasta. I have written about Shasta before...the highest peak at 14K ft. of the Cascades. She loves Shasta (massive base and very conical) but usually does not see it when they travel to Vacaville, CA where Bren's grandma lives because they frequently drive the ten hours in the dark when the boys are sleeping. So I called to say I got my first glimpse of the majestic Shasta. Oh yes, Aleene did some serious driving today while I napped and read.

We checked into a Hampton, and ate at Applebee's and are now enjoying the wireless Internet and the TV. We have about 350 miles left to Newberg for tomorrow.

I has been a great break to the winter. The conference was successful and covered the expenses of travel...more or less. Thanks to our host and hostess (who never missed a chance to feed us and to explain scoring tennis during the hours of the Aussie Open) we had a delightful vacation.