Arizona Road Trip.  Day 1: 9/15/11  Walnut Creek, CA to Mojave, CA
approximately 300 miles.  about 5-1/2 hours travel time.

This trip is the 3rd try and third time's a charm, right?  The first time was in 2010 when it was to be in conjunction with my annual February Arizona Quilting Retreat in Pheonix.  But the weather for parts of that trip would have been colder than snot ... and I don't do cold.  The February road trip was deferred and I flew to the Retreat.  (and had a Really Good Time!)

The next attempt was later that year, in late October.  We kept *trying* to go earlier, but it just never worked out.  October was the first time it would work out.  Except that ... it didn't.  ::sigh::

So, NOW ... September 2011 is the third time and we've successfully completed the first leg!

Earlier in September, we hosted the wedding of our oldest daughter, Catherine and her fiance, Forrest.  Due to all the preparation of getting the ol' homestead ready for the event, we waited until after the wedding to start the prep for the trip.  But, dang we were tired!  :-)  We not only needed to get everything ready for the trip but clean up after the wedding!  And then along with the normal, every day chores that needed to get done, the actual process of getting our gear ready and packing the Jeep didn't get done until ....   oh ... today.  :-)

With all the last minute things to get done, we didn't hit the road until 3:30pm.  We traveled down I-5 in California's Central Valley ... I-5 is a boring, *boring*, BORING highway.  At one point, we heard a "slapping" noise on the roof of the Jeep and we were concerned ... heck, we were ALARMED ... that something on the roof was about to fly off.  So we pulled off the highway to check it out.  When we opened up the rear hatch door to get a step stool, the wind was SO BAD, it caught one of our tarps and blew it across the highway.  There was no way either one of us could have caught it.  We watched helplessly as it blew across the 2 southbound lanes (where a car immediately ran over it), across the median strip and across the 2 northbound lanes.  Last seen it was heading due east.  Elvis might have been sitting on it.  :-)

But, back to the scenery.  The Central Valley used to be a great inland sea (oh, about a bazillion years ago).  As a result, it's flat.  Really flat.  Probably flatter than Kansas ... but since I've never actually BEEN to Kansas and only having seen it from an airplane, I might be wrong about that comparison.

These pictures here are typical Central Valley scenery.  Boring.

When we finally pulled into Bakersfield, it was full dark.  There must have been a LOT of dust in the air today because the moon was *orange*.  I tried to take a picture of it .. it was so impressive .. but we were in the parking lot of Home Depot (to replace the lost tarp) and all the huge lamps totally messed up the camera's focus.  This is the best I could do.

Eventually, we arrived at our destination: Mojave, CA.

There's nothing that we wanted to see here; it was just a place to stay for the night.    Motel 6 is a known chain; we can have certain expectations and not wonder if we're going to share the room with cockroaches. :-)

--Shelley