On the road to CA
It’s been six years since my friend Tony and I took a road trip to California to meet his wife and her family for Christmas, so we decided to do it again. The last time, we took the central and north central route throgh Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and finally into San Francisco. This time, we took the southern route through Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and then north through the California desert to San Francisco. I’m a bit ambivalent concerning which route was better, but I lean slightly toward the northern route and it’s likley due to the weather. This time, it was a lot of gray skys and rain. In 2017, we had a varirty of weather from relatively mild sunny days, to snow in Wyoming and California. A little more scenery last time too with the Salt Lake and Lake Tahoe as places we stopped.
Still, it was another great trip with the highlights being Fort Smith in Arkansas (learned about the hanging judge Isaac Parker), the Murrah building memorial in Oklahoma City, all of the scenery in the southwest, the fantastic traditional Chinese feast that Tamaron and her mother arranged for us at a local restaurant when we arrived, the Basque Wool Growers restaurant in Bakersfield, CA (strangely enough we went to a Basque restaurant on our last trip too), all of the other great places we dined along the way (we basically drove and ate our way across the country), and finally the nice dinner we had at Tamaron’s uncle’s house. I’m sorry I couldn’t eat with everyone together as I had to catch a flight back to KY in the late afternoon.
A great time and we are already thinking about another trip. Seven years between trips like this was too long. But, more (and bigger) adventures coming in 2024. Details soon!
As usual, here are some pics from the trip:
Looks like it was a fun trip, Dave.
Ted, yes it’s great driving through that part of the country. I’ve been following your travels and noticed you stopped in a couple of the same towns we did. Kingman, AZ was one of them..we found it to be an odd little stopover. I’m a bit envious looking at all of your posts..it seems like retirement is treating you well. Hopefully I’ll be able to do that soon myself..there might even be a post about that soon ;). Take care and safe travels.