Travelodge Barstow

We headed out about 630 in the morning. Jono, Michael, Steve and I met a the Chevron down the street from my house. We decided to go north through Pearblossom and the Mohave Deseret.

Headed north on the 15 toward Las Vegas and stopped here in Barstow for breakfest.

We'll see how exciting the freeway is and how far I get. Not my favorite kind of road but I am kinda looking forward to reaching AZ sooner rather than later. Not a California person I guess.
The freeway was the usual semis, motor homes and lots of gusty wind. Rte 99 is not a well-groomed highway but gutted it thru until Bakersfield to stop for rest and gas. Then it was out into the Mojave, love those joshua trees. A little further out into the desert ...

... and it cost us $18 to get in. We could take Pasha in also as long as she was on a leash. We did see another dog or two there also. But for future reference, I wouldn't advise it in that kind of heat.

We parked and entered the outdoor oven to explore the little mining town which was preserved by none other than the Knott family, known for Knott's Berry Farm. So it did kind of have that theme park ...

Drove from Vegas (late as usual) to the Hoover Dam about 26 miles away. We drove across the Dam after going through security as its the 6th biggest terrorist target in the US. After parking up in the RV car park we walked to the Tours office in 126f heat !!!!! It was windy and felt like a hairdryer !!!! Tour was great and explained what happened and ...

Leaving Hollywood Christina, Brook and I hit the famous highway 15 en route to Las Vegas, a trip millions of a LA and Las Vegas residents do regularly. It seems to be a break from each other's cities madness and the norm.

Brook entertained us with his random lyrical outbreaks and the sound of nails bashing into a water bucket. Brook was working on his Art project for the week, which was designing a pendulum lamp; it turned out ...

... miles from anywhere - there were a 100m between petrol stations and then they were glorified petrol stations with rail tracks near by. The trains ( union pacific, amtrak etc) were nearly a mile long and harry counted over 80 trucks on one. We also passed Edards air force base and saw lots of military adn civilian planes. We arrived hot and tired to our campground near Calico and Yermo right ...

... horoscope sign sears repair paa street hawaii widescreen facebook widescreen pixie belle at ...

... my daughter and grandkids. We went to their house to heat up soup I had made and have dinner. Their house was all decorated, inside and out. One of the few houses with lights outside on palm trees and bushes! Our whole vaction with the kids was special. We played games and video games, watched movies and ate a lot. Which meant doing a lot of dishes! Thankfully, Dustin is 15 and very helpful. We took ...

... world. It goes without saying that the world's tallest tree has its home in the park, named the General Sherman, this really is a giant amongst trees. It measures in at 208ft tall, to put this into perspective that is equal to an eleven story building, with a diameter of over 40ft and bark 2ft thick, that's one big tree! There are many others which are equally as impressive; however the splendour doesn't stop at just the trees. The park also encompasses Kings Canyon, an ...

... some more and saw a peacock (bizarre-I know) and then a second peacock (even weirder!) Supposedly they have been around for years now just chilling in the ghost town. We saw the one room schoolhouse, the old train line (which I think was just a replica for fun tour rides), and the old mining tunnels. We decided to brave our way into the mining tunnels. It was set up like a museum. It was a whopping $1 per person and so we decided to splurge a little. Inside we saw ...