5 Days in the Desert

It's winter recess! Both Hawk and I are off from work for the next 11 days. My company decided a month ago to give us all of next week off. Hawk has two holidays at hers and is spending 3 days of PTO. We'll both be back to work on Tuesday, Jan 3, 2023. So, how are we going to use our time off? For part of it, we're going to the desert.

Going to the Mojave Desert in California certainly wasn't our first choice for an end of year trip. It wasn't our second choice, either. It was, like, our fifth choice. But when we looked at making plans the options for various destinations the Caribbean, South America, South Pacific, and South Asia were all ridiculously expensive. We really should have tried planning 6 months in advance. Oh, we could still afford the high prices; we just didn't want to. For me, at least, spending $8k on airfare just to fly coach, and $800/night not for the Ritz Carlton but the Holiday Inn, makes a trip hard to enjoy. So we opted for a low key driving trip instead. And now with the aviation chaos being caused by a "Once in a generation" winter storm, that seems prescient!

We'll pack up our bags this morning and get rolling hopefully by 10am. Though at this point I think it's more likely going to be after lunch. Today we'll drive to Barstow, California. It's almost 400 miles but should only take around 6 hours driving time because the route is pretty much all freeways and traffic looks to be light today. Call it 7 hours with stops, 8 if we start late enough that we need to stop for dinner along the way.

We'll stay in Barstow for 5 nights, making various day-trips out to the desert areas nearby. We'll come home on the 28th... provisionally. One of the nice things about a driving vacation is that our plans can remain more flexible than when we're flying.

Barstow, Ho!

5 Days in the Desert travelog #1
Barstow - Fri, 23 Dec 2022, 9:30pm

This evening we arrived in Barstow. It's the first part of our journey 5 Days in the Desert (previous blog).

I wondered this morning if we'd leave home "on time". I was shooting for 10am but worried it might turn out to be 11... or later. I managed to be right on both counts! We actually left the house just after 10:00 but then we stopped at the REI in town because I needed another pair of hiking pants and a new flashlight. That wound up taking 'til 10:55 (I was quite irritated at how everything was slow) at which point we figured, we're here, we might as well have lunch. We ate at a favorite local joint in the same plaza as the REI. Then we got donuts at a favorite local donut shop in town. It wasn't until noon that we got more than 5 miles away from home.

Barstow is 382 miles away by the shortest reasonable route, with a driving time of about 6 hours when there's no traffic. Traffic looked clear early in the morning but then it crapped up by midday. Slowdowns and detours added almost an hour of driving time. With added stops for gas, dinner, and snacks we arrived in Barstow at 8pm.

So, how is Barstow? Understand that Barstow is basically a shit-hole. I don't think it's as much of a shit-hole as Bakersfield, which we passed through without stopping this time, but mostly that's because it doesn't pretend it's anything more than a highway rest stop town between LA/San Diego and Las Vegas. Oh, it's not literally just a rest stop. Barstow has a population of 25,000! But in California that's a small town.