5 Days in the Desert
Dec. 23rd, 2022 08:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerIt'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.
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.
