Death Valley - May 10th and May 11th

Wednesday 10th May- To Death Valley
The convoy parted ways at Kingman as we headed towards Death Valley and Joel and Stevie headed home to LA. Back across Hoover Dam, back past Vegas and past Area 51, finally driving though barren areas of land that Dick kept noting as being 'straight out of the X files'. It was difficult to see exactly where the valley began until we found our first information station. There we picked up a map and headed to Dante's View, where we first felt the heat of the area. The long twisty road up there was worth it for the views- miles and miles of barren nothingness. In the distance we could see both the highest point in California, Mount Whitney at over 14,000 ft above sea level, and the lowest point, Badwater, 262 ft below sea level. It was very dry and very hot.

We drove on to 'Zabriske's Point', where the rock formations look like huge claws of some unknown creature, and then to 'Badwater', the outside temperature continually rising. At 6 pm it was 105 degrees. Badwater is thought to be named after a traveller who wrote 'bad water' on his map after his donkey refused to drink it. No wonder, it is very salty!

We walked on the salt crystals and gazed up at the mark on the hillside which showed where sea level is. The heat never leaves the valley as the surrounding mountains trap it in. We hit the perfect time for sunset again, this time over Artists Pallette, an area of naturally occuring strange coloured sand. We were definatley working up a thirst and a beer was foremost in Dick's mind. We were staying at Furnace Creek Ranch and we hit the bar!

Thursday 11th May- The longest day- Part 1
The longest day began with standing on sand dunes in the dessert- most peculiar and still no cooler first thing in the morning. A long barren drive north towards 'Scotty's Castle' where we bought a detailed map of California, and had our first incling that the day may turn out to be longer than we expected. We were heading towards Yosemite and happened to mention it to the ranger. She noted that the main route across the Sierra Nevada's was still closed due to heavy snowfall. Snow? In May? The map did say 'closed in winter'. Can't be that bad we thought. Want to bet??

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Shrimp Artichoke Pizza With Cilantro Pesto

We are die hard home made pizza fans, and make one once a week- usually Friday or Sunday nights. They normally consist of a pizza base made in the bread machine, with toppings such us onions, peppers, mushrooms, and some kind of sausage with a good layer of fresh mozzarella. For a long time, Dick has tried to convince me that shrimp is good on a pizza, but I just didn't even like the sound of any kind of fish on pizza. If I've ever had shrimp on pizza it was a long time ago and they were small and hard after being baked. Yuk. However, last weekend we both ended up listening to a story on NPR about a winning pizza recipe in New York. It actually sounded good even to me, and tonight we made it, and it was lovely!

CA to MA day 3- Pasdena CA to Needles CA

Today we left Pasadena and joined route 66. We are following a combination of an open street map with a GPX of route 66 on it, a paper map especially for route 66 and a book because there are several iterations of the route, as it changed over time. The drive out of LA from Pasadena towards San Bernardino started off really well, and we already saw lots of iconic signs. However, after two hours of constant traffic lights, we ended up cutting off a short section of that part of route 66 to keep our sanity, and joined I15 for a short distance, unfortunately, we also missed another short section of route 66 which we should have joined. Our first actual stop was in a tiny town called Victorville where we stopped for lunch at an old route 66 diner called Emma Jean's Holland Burger Cafe. We shared a 'Brian Burger' which was recommended in the book we have. It was a great recommendation! It was a really well cooked tasty burger - so glad we shared it as it was enormous! Ther

Thank-full for health insurance

Having spent 4 hours in the emergency room last night with Dick, I am grateful that we have health insurance. It all started with a phone call from Dick saying he had fallen off his bicycle on his way home from work, and would I come and collect him as he was a 'bit banged up'? I rushed there and the first thing I saw was that I could hardly see his eyes- he was having a severe allergic reaction to something that was manifesting itself in his sinuses. All he could remember was having a huge sneezing fit after he 'woke up' having fell off his bike. 'Woke up'?? He couldn't remember hitting his head, although the scrape on the right side of his forehead showed he'd definitely banged his head. His first concern, naturally, was that the bike and his laptop were ok. However, we did not hang around to check them over, we just loaded them into the car- after he taken an anti-histamine that I always keep in my bag. For Dick to say he is hurting is unusual enough,

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