To Bakersfield, and Beyond!
Mar. 25th, 2022 05:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerHigh Desert Weekend Trip-log #1
Leaving home soon (I hope) - Fri, 25 Mar 2022, 5:45pm
Tonight we leave on a weekend trip to visit the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve and other parks in the high desert of California. We won't actually get as far as all that tonight, though. We'll drive as far as Bakersfield. It's our Friday Night Halfway technique... which I realize we haven't employed much lately. The last was six months ago, in October; then before that, not since a night in Folsom in July.
There's good news and bad news about staying in Bakersfield tonight. The good news is that we'll actually be more than halfway there. We'll have covered over 4 hours and 250 miles of driving already. Tomorrow morning we'll have just over an hour more to get to the park. Yeah, if I wanted to be technical I could have titled this journal entry "Friday Night 77% of the Way There," but that's foolish.
The bad news is we'll be in Bakersfield. It's an overgrown dusty shit-hole town at the edge of where California's agricultural Central Valley meets the desert oil belt. The ground's almost too arid to farm, the summer heat is brutal, the air is awful, and probably half the population is on illegal drugs. ...Not that I fault them too much. If I had to live in this hell-scape I'd probably turn to drugs, too.
Another minus is that we'll arrive late at night. Though we aimed to roll from home not long after 6pm it's already looking that will be closer to 7. And we'll need to stop for gas. And dinner. And a bit of shopping— we're still trying to find more bowls matching our new set of plates! 🤣 And there will likely be traffic all along the way, even on I-5 in the remote Central Valley. A drive that could take just under 4 hours with no traffic and no stops will likely be 6 hours tonight. So I anticipate we'll get to our hotel room around 1am and I won't be able to wind down for sleep until closer to 2. 😖 That's kind of the deal with Friday Night Halfway, though. Especially when we push it to Friday Night 77% of the Way There.
But again, there's an upside to the late hour and having to be in Bakersfield. Aside from the fact that most of my time in Bakersfield will be spent unconscious, I mean. In the morning we should have an easy drive to the park, leaving more time and energy available for hiking. Should. We'll see how it goes.
Update: Good news, bad news (mostly good news) in Bakersfield
Leaving home soon (I hope) - Fri, 25 Mar 2022, 5:45pm
Tonight we leave on a weekend trip to visit the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve and other parks in the high desert of California. We won't actually get as far as all that tonight, though. We'll drive as far as Bakersfield. It's our Friday Night Halfway technique... which I realize we haven't employed much lately. The last was six months ago, in October; then before that, not since a night in Folsom in July.
There's good news and bad news about staying in Bakersfield tonight. The good news is that we'll actually be more than halfway there. We'll have covered over 4 hours and 250 miles of driving already. Tomorrow morning we'll have just over an hour more to get to the park. Yeah, if I wanted to be technical I could have titled this journal entry "Friday Night 77% of the Way There," but that's foolish.
The bad news is we'll be in Bakersfield. It's an overgrown dusty shit-hole town at the edge of where California's agricultural Central Valley meets the desert oil belt. The ground's almost too arid to farm, the summer heat is brutal, the air is awful, and probably half the population is on illegal drugs. ...Not that I fault them too much. If I had to live in this hell-scape I'd probably turn to drugs, too.
Another minus is that we'll arrive late at night. Though we aimed to roll from home not long after 6pm it's already looking that will be closer to 7. And we'll need to stop for gas. And dinner. And a bit of shopping— we're still trying to find more bowls matching our new set of plates! 🤣 And there will likely be traffic all along the way, even on I-5 in the remote Central Valley. A drive that could take just under 4 hours with no traffic and no stops will likely be 6 hours tonight. So I anticipate we'll get to our hotel room around 1am and I won't be able to wind down for sleep until closer to 2. 😖 That's kind of the deal with Friday Night Halfway, though. Especially when we push it to Friday Night 77% of the Way There.
But again, there's an upside to the late hour and having to be in Bakersfield. Aside from the fact that most of my time in Bakersfield will be spent unconscious, I mean. In the morning we should have an easy drive to the park, leaving more time and energy available for hiking. Should. We'll see how it goes.
Update: Good news, bad news (mostly good news) in Bakersfield
