Day 2 - Barstow, CA to Holbrook, AZ

[Barstow, CA to Holbrook, AZ] John is so sorry he complained about the I-5 drive being boring. We spent 10 hours on I-40 today in the Mojave Desert. Can you say "No Services Next 79 Miles"? That was really boring! On a brighter note, we have stumbled across an idea for a future road trip. More on that later in this posting.

We shoved off from Barstow at somewhere near 7:30a.m. having had our complimentary hot breakfast at the motel. It was actually pretty good. John had bacon, eggs, hash browns, toast and coffee. Linda had fruit and her Raw Bits Twang Twang.

Also, we are pleased to report that all of the bathrooms in the Arizona Rest Stops along the interstate are much cleaner than those in California. That's because they are never used. All the Rest Areas along I-40 were closed! That's right, over 300 miles in Arizona and not one lousy Rest Area was open. Guess they're broke like California.

I should mention, that when we crossed from California into Arizona, Wilma automatically moved her clock (the one in the van) forward one hour. Pretty smart girl!

John was pining for his high potency coffee this morning. We stopped in Needles, CA looking for a Starbucks or equivalent. We stopped at a gas station and inquired. The attendant said, "They serve coffee at Denny's". Duh! So, we have renamed Needles, CA to "Needless, CA".

As we were approaching Kingman, AZ, we used the navigation system to look for coffee places along our route. Sure enough, there was a single Starbucks in Kingman. And, there were no other coffee places listed within 118 miles. Didn't need to get gas in Kingman, but it was $2.51. After we bought our beverages at the Starbucks drive-thru, we parked in a nearby parking lot and broke out some fruit and snacks for a quick lunch. Temperature was 43 deg. and the wind was blowing pretty good. It felt good inside the van.

We saw a sign along the highway saying that at the next exit there was access to historic route 66. It is now known as The Old National Trail Highway. We exited I-40, got on Rte 66 and took some photographs. Back on the interstate. Later, we came to Yucca, AZ. We got off I-40, roamed over to Rte 66 and took some more photographs. While we're here in Holbrook, in addition to the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, we are going to explore more of Rte 66. This is the seed now planted for a potential future road trip. We'll need to do some research about what portions of the original Rte 66 are still "travelable" and see where that leads us. One thing about it. It is historic.

We stopped in Williams, AZ for gas. The stations by the exit were peddling it for $3.07. We drove to downtown Williams and found gas for $2.71. Probably comes off the same truck, too. At Williams we also found another antique shop. Alas, the same problem. Nothing quite old enough.

Pulled in to Holbrook at 5:30p.m. Temperature was a "comfortable" 37 deg. Forecast for tommorow and Tuesday is much warmer (50's and 60's) with almost no wind.

The clerk at the Ramada Inn recommended Denny's when we asked about dinner. Ordinarily we are not Denny fans but after taking a drive up and down the area decided to give it a try. Linda had Ranchero Talapia and John had BFD (breakfast for dinner) and was amazed to find grits on the menu. When Linda asked what Ranchero potatoes were that came with the talapia the waitress said, "They're new but so far no one has had anything good to say about them". How nice to have such honesty. Linda substituted cole slaw.

Oh, and an update. we're glad we emailed our son about his lost Blackberry. We had left a message on his work voice mail, not realizing that it was Saturday and he wouldn't get the message until Monday (it's like that when you're retired!). We received an email reply from him today. He was relieved and had recovered his Blackberry. In fact, he sent the email from his Blackberry. Ain't technology grand?

It's 9:30p.m. here now and we're both sort of dragging. I'm sure we'll sleep good tonight.

You can view today's photo gallery at by clicking here