February 19, 2020 - California

After discussing things with my waiter the night before, and asking what I should do in Needles, I decided to not spend a lot of time in Needles and move onto Barstow.  Got lost, almost ended up in Nevada, got turned around and got back on Route 66 via I-40.

Made a small stop in Amboy, CA - I'd hit this the first time through but someone mentioned that the Chinese Statues have a guest book to sign, and I wanted to sign it.  There isn't a guest book anymore.  I drove by the Roy's Motel & Cafe and the Amboy Volcanic Crater and continued west on Route 66 aka National Trails Highway.  Drove by the Pisgah Crater and late afternoon hit the Bagdad Café in Newberry Springs.  It was the shooting location for the 1987 movie called Bagdad Cafe.

Made it to Barstow in good time.  My original plan was to hit the two museums here that I missed the first time.  They weren't open before and I wasn't sure they'd be open this time around.  If I was using my brain, I would have pulled it up on google and discovered that they both have weird hours, which is why I didn't do them the first time and why I wouldn't be doing them this time either.  There was a Route 66 Museum and a train museum and they were both closed.

Headed over to the train/bus station which I'd noticed on the last drive through Barstow.  They have a bunch of fast food and gift shops and the McDonalds seating area is made from train cars.  It was a interesting design but at heart was like any other centralized tourist shop.  I checked with a shop worker to see if she had any recommendations while I was in town and she recommended that I leave, cause Barstow has nothing of interest.  Very similar to the advice I got in Needles.

Decided to drive from Barstow to Lancaster.  Drove through Edwards Airforce Base, which was kind of cool. Found a airplane graveyard and had interesting planes/jets flying over head occasionally and lots of Joshua Trees along the way.  It was a nice drive.

Got to Lancaster still fairly early, checked to see what was available.  Thought about doing a movie, but I'd seen most that I'd wanted to see at this stage.  Topped off the gas tank, drove around the area a bit and found a nice place to sleep.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

January 10 - January 16 2021 - St Petersburg FL

Image
  1-10-2021 Corona Cases       21,217,244 Corona Deaths    354,491        1-16-2021 Corona Cases       22,445,517 Corona Deaths    374,825   Interesting things we did this week Sunday I did the Disney Marathon Weekend 10k, and I admit, I kind like doing the Half first and the 10K second.  I averaged at 21:14 minute mile, which wasn’t as good as yesterday, but I was still a little tired and the difference was minimal. Sunday afternoon, Bree and I went to a park in Lakeland.  I haven’t been on a hiking walk for a while, I’ve been very focused on getting in miles and making good times.  We went to the Circle B Bar Reserve.  This is a fantastic park.  People were out in droves.  Walkers, bikers and photographers.  There were some pretty impressive camera set ups there.  I got a bunch of shots: bald eagles, osprey, red sho...
Read more

Sept 27 - Oct 3, 2020 - St Petersburg, FL

Image
Sept 27 Coronavirus US CASES 6,980,115 Coronavirus DEATHS 192,761     Oct 3      Coronavirus US CASES 7,234,219 Coronavirus DEATHS 197,206     Gil’s Birthday Celebration continued through Sunday.  We started out doing a liter clean up at Sawgrass, I’d signed up a month previous and I decided it might be a fun additional to the rest of the activities.  The liter cleanup was joined by Lisa and Chris and Carla.  It didn’t go as smoothly as I’d hoped.  I had received a message from the park ranger that the canal at the front of the park was a high liter area.  They had something called a water goat in the canal and it prevents the liter from floating down stream.  It was a good collection of trash but unfortunately much of it was out of reach.  We had liter pickers and a net and this was helpful, but it still left a lot of liter.  We talked about getting a boat but launching i...
Read more

Route 66 - Day 3 - Oct 11, 2019

Image
Woke up after a great nights sleep in the Lincoln Walmart parking lot.  I love Walmarts that cater to those boondocking and I always try to spend my dollars t here when I can.  Hit the road early and started marking things off my list.  The Route 66 Ultimate Guide is a pretty good guide.  Its not perfect, I've missed some things I wanted to see because I assumed they would be included, but unfortunately they are not.  I'm trying to be more conscience now and double checking things.  I started in Lincoln and ended the day close to the Illinois/Missouri border.  I didn't want to cross as I wanted to hike the old Chain of Rocks bridge in the daylight.  The walmarts in the area didn't offer overnight parking, so I backtracked for a few miles and spent the night at a rest area on I-44. Highlights: Springfield, IL - This town really embraces their connection to Lincoln and its obvious around every turn.  Lincoln statues, Lincoln Scultptures, Li...
Read more