Mar/100
houston to sacramento
this was on an old blog of mine – i don’t think it was ever read by anybody. the interludes are written by cousin celia
i dug it up in my email while looking for something. this took place in july 2006.
(with photos!)
Miles covered: 3,427
States visited: Texas, New Mexico , Colorado, Utah, Arizona , Nevada and California
Most Expensive Gas Bought: $3.48 in Big Pine, California
Most Expensive Gas Seen: $4.09 somewhere in the middle of California
Best Meal: Bouchon, Las Vegas AND Salt Lick Bar-be-que, Driftwood, Texas (tie)
Worst Meal: Triangle Cafe, Bloomfield NM AND Pacific Grill, Truth or Consequences, NM.
National Parks Visited: Big Bend, Mesa Verde, Grand Canyon
National Parks Driven By: Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Yosemite
Money lost by me at the Craps Table: $200
Photos taken by me: 378
Animals Hit by Car: 0
Animals Almost Hit By Car: Many
Types of Animals almost hit: Jackrabbits, deer, coyotes, vultures, elk, birds, squirrels, skunks
Best Hotel Stayed in: Desert Rose Inn, Bluff Utah
Worst Hotel Stayed in: Charles Hotel, Truth or Consequences, NM
Day 1: July 4
Hey! It’s America’s birthday! But more importantly – at least for me personally on this day – it’s the start of my mega-road trip. The idea of driving across the US (or at least a large portion of it) has appealed to me ever since high school. I came up with a hare-brained idea/scheme to drive across the US between high school graduation and the start of university. It involved a 2 months on the road – including a scheme to buy a motorcycle with a sidecar, a trip to South Dakota and a pilgrimage to South Carolina to eat barbecue. Thankfully, smarter people prevailed and I just went around the world instead. But I never really lost that idea – well, the motorcycle side car idea got ditched – but the main idea. America. Me and a car. Stopping at roadside eateries. Seeing national parks. Eating all sorts of food which would cause me harm in my future. The dream didn’t die.
So aided by the status of my employment (i.e. not really having a job) I made plans to travel back to California by the road. Ostensibly to move my car and a few belongings to my parents house in Sacramento – it was really more the fulfillment of a long held dream. Otherwise, I would’ve just took off and been in Sacramento 3 days later.
Quickly my cousin Celia wanted to join in. I didn’t really have a plan – just a vague outline: the Grand Canyon , and Thomas Keller’s Bouchon in Las Vegas were my only real goals. Some other ideas: Zion Canyon, Salt Lake City, Big Bend National Park – well, they were tossed around, but I thought we’d just pack the atlas and make a go of it.
Celia: In spite of having traveled so much around the world; I really haven’t seen much of my own country, the good ol’ U.S . of A. My parents drove from NC to CA when I was 6 months old, but really I haven’t done the American classic: a proper road trip. So when Terry was going to drive back from Houston to Sacramento; I invited myself and Joe along. Joe could only make the second half of the trip because he had to mind the cubicle farm.
So we departed my Houston loft early the morning of July 4th – our first stop, Austin TX. The capital of Texas, and really what I wanted to do here was go to Salt Lick Barbecue – my favorite in a state full of amazing barbecue. Celia wanted to catch the World Cup semi-final ( Germany vs. Italy) – which was fine with me since I had seen about 50 of the previous 62 World Cup games, I too was interested.
Celia: While I was employed, albeit as a contractor, I managed to watch about 50 of the 62 World Cup games in June. (I’m paying for it: with all the beer I drank, and the lack of exercise, my fat pants have become just-fit pants.)
Actually, to backtrack a little bit – we stopped off at the Breakfast Klub in Houston on our way out of town. Mmmmm, grits. Actually, I’m probably not a grits fan, but the butter and salt – delicious. Then, it was on to Austin.
Celia: The grits accompany fried catfish, or fried chicken wings. Now there’s the breakfast of champions. (If you can’t make it to Houston, the Home of Chicken and Waffles in Jack London Square dishes out food of the same genre.)
At the Breakfast Klub, you order and pay the cashier, then grab a seat with your number. The line was out the door, but not yet around the block. It gave me a chance to observe Texas’ laid-back hospitality: the cashier noticed Terry’s Houston 1860 T-shirt (now a collector’s item, since they’re now the Dynamos, having formerly been the SJ Earthquakes); and had a nice leisurely chat about whether Terry was going to see the game that night, and on and on.
One of my regrets about the time I spent in Texas – I never came up to Austin quite enough times. I guess it was one of those things – “yeah, it’s just 2.5 hours away . . . it’ll always be there.” I had only previously been up here for a Beastie Boys concert, a trip with my high school friend Maple and the tail end of the MS150. So I had never really visited. Not that 1.5 days in July was a real visit either, but it’d have to do. We got up to town with enough time to take a quick trip around the capital building (big, got yelled at by a ‘candidate’ for the upcoming gubernatorial election, impressive though) and then went to catch the GER/ITA match.
Celia: Austin’s capitol is pink (not painted, but naturally from the granite.) Inside the assembly rooms are black and white photos of legislators laid out year-book style . . . and their grand children, a nice touch!
After a great, great football game, we head over to Chuy’s for some great Tex-Mex (since I’m hoping to be employed in China in a month or two, I’m trying to eat as much Tex-Mex as possible – last time I lived in Asia, that’s what I missed the most). The most famous thing about Chuy’s in Austin, is that it’s where Jenna Bush got busted for under-aged drinking.
Celia: Chuy’s also has a jalapeno ranch sauce, which you have to ask for, but it’s free, for chip dip. The default is green and red salsas. It’s strangely arresting; the next day I was still thinking about it, that jalapeno ranch sauce.
We stole a knife from Chuy’s since I had bought a melon from a roadside fruit-stand, and we didn’t have a Swiss Army knife. That was dessert in our Motel-6 room that night.
After that it was a trip to the Congress Street Bridge to see the bats and the fireworks. Strangely, we didn’t see the bats (must’ve missed them – or maybe they don’t come out in the rain – anyone know?) but we did see a fantastic sunset, got rained on, and some really good fireworks. And I’ve seen a lot of fireworks – but these were great.
Celia: I was rather disappointed not to see the bats; for me that was one of the two main things I wanted to do in Austin. I’ve seen bats before, in Jaipur (In my India write-up, I talked about bat fireworks!). But in keeping with the American theme of the road-trip, I wanted to see New World bats. Besides, there’s supposed to be more bats here, so it would be more spectacular. The conventional fireworks were fair compensation. Good thing we came on the Fourth of July.
Day 2: July 5 Leaving Motel 6 early in the morning, Celia wants to go for a swim at the famous Barton Springs Pool. I go with her . . . but enter the water up to my knees and decide to lie on the side for a nap instead. COLD!
Celia: Wimp. The water was merely bracing. Barton Springs Pool is a creek that’s blocked off at either end. The floor is limestone, and the deeper end is where the weeds grow under water. Since it’s fresh-water, it’s chlorine-free, although there’s a faint whiff of algae. It was a little hard to find, but the good thing is, you don’t have to pay when you swim between 6 AM – 9 AM!
After a quick swim, we’re on our way to the Salt Lick Barbecue in nearby Driftwood TX.
Celia: We were on a quest for kolaches for breakfast after the swim. Kolaches were introduced by Czech/Eastern European immigrants a couple of generations ago. It’s a stuffed bun people eat for snacks or breakfast. It’s superiority over the donut lies in the stuffings: it can be sweet (fruit) or savoury (ham and cheeses, sausage, etc.) It actually took us a quite a while to find a kolache shop though. “They’re usually in strip malls,” Terry remarked. Finally when we were driving on the backside of the medical area (figures), we found Lone Star Kolaches in a strip mall (lonestarkolaches.com ). I had only one polish sausage kolache. It was tasty indeed. But we needed to save our stomach space for BBQ. .
I first heard about the Salt Lick from my friends Robert and Audrey Trevino and finally got to try it on a trip with my friend from high school – but this is the first time I really got to go on my own. We were the first people into the dining room and just ordered the family platter.
Celia: The Hill Country we were driving though away from Austin is suffering a rash of subdivisioning. And, oh yes, it is hilly indeed.
Salt Lick is located in a ‘dry county’, i.e. they don’t sell alcohol. So we stopped by for me to buy a bottle for BYOB. The only single bottles of beer they sold were rather large, and Terry is a teetotaler. I grabbed a small bottle of Spaten, but it turns out to have been malt liquor, not beer. I didn’t drink it at Salt Lick. In fact, it simply rode the rest of the way back to Sacramento as booze talisman.
Man, do they cook a mean sausage. I mean, the ribs and brisket were pretty good, and the sides (cole slaw, potatoes, bread and pickles) were decent – but the sausage is heaven. I came close to ordering some more, but instead we finished off some cobbler before hitting the road again.
Celia: Salt-Lick is charmingly un-air-conditioned. The sausage was the best thing on the trip, bar none. I wasn’t impressed by the ribs; somehow maybe I kept getting the bad pieces? I really liked the cole-slaw, it’s not creamy, just a vinegar base, simply shredded greens and sesame seeds. Almost Chinese. The family platter is thali-style, i.e. if you run out of something, they can refill it for you. We didn’t ask for anything more (although I was tempted to ask for more cole slaw), and still had a ton of food which we doggy-bagged (good thing, as you’ll find out later.) Ordering blackberry cobbler was not the wisest thing to do when your waist is now the same circumference as an RV hubcap, but it was very, very tasty.
We made a decision to avoid interstates as much as possible, but not to avoid them to the preclusion of going too far out of our way – so we got on 290 heading west towards Fredericksburg, TX.
A little known fact outside of Texas – heck, I’m not sure how many Texans outside of Hill Country really know about it – but central Texas/Hill Country was settled by a lot of Eastern Europeans and especially Germans. The story goes that when Texas was applying for statehood, the US government wanted the population to be increased, so the Texas Republic placed advertisements in German and other European newspapers giving away land in areas like Fredericksburg. This was a boon to a lot of the second, third and fourth (etc.) born in these lands, as they had no future prospects as the non-first born, seeing as they would receive no inheritance.
Celia: Admiral Chester Nimitz (yes, he of Hwy 880 fame!) was a son of Fredericksburg. His family ran the Nimitz Hotel, which has been converted into a National Museum of the Pacific War, and includes a victory/liberty garden. (Because food was rationed during WWII, many families were encouraged to grow their own fruit and vegetables to supplement their diets.)
“Do you know what a victory garden is?” I asked Terry.
“Of course,” he retorted. He and Keelan (another cousin) were huge WWII buffs when they were in elementary school, not least by watching war movies about Rommel and the Battle of El Alamein.
“Why do you want to see this movie El-mut-gwai ?” Keelan’s dad asked. (Cantonese joke: ‘Mut-gwai’ can be loosely translated as ‘whatchamacallit’)
We walked up and down Fredericksburg ‘s chi-chi (actually ye-olde-country cutesy) and slightly cheesy main street (haupt strasse) and then went to the Pioneer Museum which was kind of a cool look at frontier life and how difficult it just might have been. The woman who was working at the front desk – she said she actually spoke German as a first language – and most people up until very recently did as well.
Trying to make up time, we got back on 290 and connected to the 10 and headed south towards Big Bend National Park – trying to get to the town of Marathon, TX to spend the night.
Somewhere along the way, we juxtaposed a 285 and 385 and ended up in Sanderson , TX . . . a good 54 miles away from our destination and faced a drive along a completely dark highway 90 before pulling into Marathon (and the ultra retro Marathon Motel) sometime around 9pm . Good thing we had leftovers from the Salt Lick, because everything was closed except for the gas station.
Celia: Earplugs had been provided in our rooms by the motel, because the freight trains which run throughout the day and . . . night are required to toot their horns when going through at-grade crossings (my transportation friends reading this all know this pesky federal/PUC requirement well.) With a population of 500, I don’t think they will be grade-separating anytime soon.
Day 3 July 6: We woke up early in Marathon , eager to get on the road, since we were still 40 miles away from the edge of Big Bend National Park . We filled up, bought some cheap burritos and water, cookies and sausage biscuits and were on our way to what was probably the least visited national park in the US.
Big Bend was far away from everything – probably good 4-5 hour drive from San Antonio or El Paso either direction – the closest airport was in tiny Alpine, TX. So it’s not an easy place to visit. But since I had the gift of time, and it was sort of on the way back to California, I decided that it was a place I wanted to visit.
Boy, I am glad that we did. It was wonderful. Aside from being pulled over by a ranger for doing 30 mph over the speed limit, we had a fantastic time in Big Bend.
Celia: I was the one driving when we got pulled over. When we were doing 80 MPH on the approach to the park; it was hard to remember that there was a speed limit in the park (a restrictive 45 mph) when the scenery inside the park looked the same as the approach, except for the Chisos Mountains in front of us.
“Why were you speeding?” asked the ranger.
“Well, I was bowled over by the scenery; I wasn’t paying attention to the speed.” Plus there was no other traffic around.
He let us off with a warning, and then continued in true Texan hospitality, “Do you have any questions about the sights and attractions in the park?”
We shared hot springs with two families – with the Rio Grande a few feet away – and Mexico (and some Mexicans who would’ve sold us Cokes, walking sticks and other goodies if we had just signaled) just a few feet further. Like 20 feet. Like I could’ve walked to Mexico. We camped out under the stars and took a long hike in the Chisos Basin. For such a large park, it was the most empty I’ve ever seen a national park. While driving around, we’d go 40 minutes between seeing other cars.
Celia: Terry has never been to Mexico. Apparently before 9/11 you could cross the border here, even if was to wade 20 feet across the Rio Grande (it was more like a creek at this point where the hot springs were) to buy Cokes and a walking stick. Now, with the illegal immigration issue on the radar, it’s more ‘illegal’ than before.
A sidenote – during our hike up the Lost Mine Trail, Celia mentioned the Chinese habit of giving rocks and mountains anthropomorphic names like “Turtle Drinking Water” or “Elephant Breaking Rocks.” We wondered if there would ever be anyone giving out updated anthropomorphic names – we came up with a lot of silly ones: “Dragon Updates MySpace page,” “Monkey Arranges ipod Playlist,” and “Snake Checks Blackberry During Meeting.”
Celia: My favourite has always been “Four Pandas Playing Mah-jong.”
Incidentally, it was on a prior China trip in 1997 with Terry and Joe that I was struck by the Chinese tendency to name geological features after imaginary animals. When we traveled the Three Gorges and the Li River near Guilin, the maps and guides on the boat would point out, “And to your left is the Lion-riding-the-Carp, because it looks like a lion riding a carp.” All we would ever see was rocks. Beautiful and craggy, chiseled by wind and carved by water perhaps, but a pile of rocks nonetheless.
Day 3: July 6
We woke up early again, the birds were really loud right on top of our tent – and this day promised to be one of the longer driving days of the trip. A couple-hour detour within the park took us to the edge of the beautiful and immense Santa Elena Canyon (half in the US, half in Mexico) and I threw rocks across the border, just to say I could. In fact, today’s river crossing – Mexico was even closer than the previous day. Then we headed for Marfa , TX.
Celia: I think the Rio Grand was narrower at the Hot Springs than at Santa Elena, but today there was no one else around except us.
Marfa – a couple of times I had seen documentaries or travel shows or exhibits at the Menil Collection in Houston about some museum out in the middle of nowhere Texas, but I didn’t really know where it was. The night before my trip, however, my friend Monica came by to visit (she was in downtown Houston at a hotel on business) and she said – “You should TOTALLY go to Marfa” – and *bang!* it clicked for me. Marfa was the town. And they were right – it is totally in the middle of nowhere . . . but only 103 miles from the other side of Big Bend.
So off we sped heading for Marfa – and expectations of a town totally in the middle of nowhere, Texas . . . and reality collided. I had visions of tumbleweeds and dirt blowing, but Marfa, I suspect due to the presence of the Chinati Foundation, was a nice little ritzy town with a nice hotel, great horchata and the Chinati Foundation Museum.
Celia: Ritzy enough that 20 miles on the highway out of Marfa, there’s a little roadside shop that says “Prada Marfa”. No watermelon stands for them: it looks just like any other store you’d see on Via Condotti in Rome. It stands all by its lonesome in the middle of nothingness. Actually, we blew by too fast; I couldn’t tell if it was a spoof, art installation, or for real until I came home and googled it.
Fortuitously for us, the chi-chi restaurant in the Marfa’s renovated Hotel Paisano wasn’t open for lunch. We ended up at a hole-ish-in-the-wall place called Conchita’s, where we had excellent Mexican food: fiery chile verde plate special for $5 and carne asada. Not Tex-Mex, it wasn’t gilded with cheese. And the horchata was even better than at my local taqueria.
I won’t say much about the museum or Donald Judd’s work or Dan Flavin’s work – but I really liked it. It’s not for everyone though – but I’m glad we went. Also we turned out to be really lucky with timing – apparently they only give two tours a day – one that starts at 10.30am, one that starts at 2.00pm. We arrived at 1.55pm.
Celia: The founder (Judd) bought a decommissioned cavalry fort, and converted the barracks and grounds into an art museum. I think modern art takes itself a little seriously for the little of consequence it offers.
One installation titled ‘untitled’ featured a series of coloured fluorescent tubes. Since you can only view it on tour, I wonder if they switch off the lights when no one is there, to save some energy and money?
Another featured an indoor series of 100 polished aluminum boxes (titled ’100 untitled works in mill aluminum.’ I guess the mill is where they polish the aluminum.) They’re roughly the same size as a 2-bike locker box, but my goodness, there’s 100 ways to define the same volume into unique spaces. Outdoors, the same artist did something similar with concrete, which I mistook for the remnants of an obstacle course for training the fort’s previous inhabitants.
My favourite: A room full of accessible pop-art paintings. The artist seems to restrict his palette to blue, baby blue, black, white, pink and dark green. This must make it easy for his assistants to go stock up on paints at the local art supply store.
Everyone I told I was driving back to California from Houston mentioned that driving through West Texas would be the worst part of the drive. So far, we hadn’t thought so. 290 from Austin was actually really spectacular and also a lot of fun to drive. But the naysayers were right. After Marfa, 90 up to Van Horn and then 10 from Van Horn to El Paso? – it was a pretty sucky and boring drive.
Celia: If you had to map out areas of significant Texan vulture populations, you’d essentially have a map of the highways; what with all the roadkill making for easy pickings. Watching for vultures made for entertainment on the long drive, since we don’t have them in California.
They’d group together, distinctive members of a club in black with red head markings, and hang around the matching crimsoned carcasses of dearly departed jackrabbits. Some of the vultures would startle and be silly enough to fly low across the road as we approached, narrowly missing us.
“I wonder if vultures would feed on vulture roadkill? Do vultures cannibalize?”
We decided to push on past El Paso, then past the nice looking town of Las Cruces (first mistake) and I wanted to stay in Truth or Consequences (second mistake).
Celia: our original plan was to stay in El Paso for day so we could day trip to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Terry could then add to his list of countries he’d visited. I’d even brought my passport and leftover pesos along.
While checking into our hotel in Truth or Consequences (or T or C as they call it) – there was a book on sale in the hotel lobby – “Worst Towns in America” (which included Houston and T or C) – maybe that should have been a sign.
Celia: for me this was the worst stop because I lost my new watch with the obnoxious Caltrans fluorescent orange strap. I left it in the hotel room, I think.
After trying to get into our shabby room, we were hungry and went back and asked the really nice woman at the check-in counter where to eat. “Oh, go to Pacific Grill – lots of food for a GREAT price”
Hmmm, seafood in New Mexico? Well, I did have one of the best seafood dinners ever in Salt Lake City , but this town was pretty shabby . . . but there weren’t a whole lot of other choices AND I wanted to get back and watch TV after a couple days in the park – so we hit Pacific Grill.
Well, it was pretty bad – and a lot of food, so we both took back containers of leftovers and watched TV.
Celia: the food wasn’t that bad. Shrimp/scallops stir-fried in garlic with sun-dried tomatoes and veggies over rice. It did taste better the next day, for the flavours to develop. Our room had a kitchen, so we could heat up the leftovers.
I boiled water in a saucepan for a cup of tea. I had to throw it out, because it was so salty! I guess the previous users didn’t wash out the pot very well.
Day 4: July 7
One of the things that T or C is famous for (aside from being named after a radio program) is hot springs – so we took a soak and ate the leftovers from Pacific Grill (which got better after a night’s stay in the fridge) before we hit the road to pick up Celia’s husband Joe in Albuquerque.
We had a quick lunch along Historic Route 66 (to become a theme in the second half of our trip) at the Standard Diner in Albuquerque. The idea – I liked the idea of it. It reminded me of Tiffany’s restaurant idea on Top Chef – American standards, but with high end ingredients and techniques. The muffins were really good – and the concept of high end mac and cheese works with me. But the payoff was . . . eh. Especially for the price. I would’ve rather had real mac and cheese, and a milkshake! What kind of diner doesn’t have milkshakes?
Celia: We went to the Standard because the café inside Duran’s Pharmacy was closed. I’d really wanted to try frito pie, on the other end of the spectrum from the Southwest/New Mexico cuisine of Mark Miller’s Coyote Café. I had a duck confit tamale. It was OK, but coming from the Bay Area, I’m harder to impress with this kind of ‘cuisine.’ Chile verde in Marfa had been a better meal.
We killed a small bit of time in Albuquerque Museum of Art and History; then went to pick up Celia’s husband Joe at the airport- and then lit out for Santa Fe, where one of Celia’s former co-workers lived.
Celia: In hindsight, I wish we had grabbed a quick bite and spent more time at the museum. Interestingly enough, they give discounts on admission to New Mexico residents there (It was a trend I noticed when we traveled around NM; perhaps because they’re so inundated with tourists, and the locals tends to have lower income? It’s something I’m used to in less-developed countries like Thailand, China and India; seeing it in the US was a little surprising.)
Santa Fe is one of those towns that has been populated by the exclusively artsy and wealthy – or at least it seems that way. All the shops in the main district are these upscale galleries filled with indigenous art and paintings and stuff for suckers. . I mean art connoisseurs.
Celia: I hadn’t really expected much from the art galleries, having seen how Sausalito and Carmel evolved to peddle schlock passed off as art. But most of it was pretty impressive, and we didn’t even go to Canyon Drive. We walked around Old Town. Frank told us the best place to buy souvenirs was the Five-and-Dime, where we picked up the requisite alien-themed shotglass for Tom, made in China, of course. Most of the souvenirs for sale were made in abroad.
For cheap ‘Native-American’ themed items, i.e. jewelry, pottery, figurines, the Five and Dime store is honest in labeling them as ‘non-Native-American made’. (I’m not kidding, this is actually legislated.) These tchotkes are cheap and suffice for those who want a mere ‘been-there, done-that’ souvenir. Items made by Native Americans are usually more expensive but higher quality. For instance, a real Navajo blanket could cost $400 if it was the size of a towel, to $1,000 and up for a floor-sized one. A lot of Native American craftsmen are finding it harder to compete against the cheaper foreign-made stuff. So if you want to support them, it’s better to buy something that’s genuinely made by them, to support these artisans’ livelihood. (Alas, there’s also many disreputable retailers who mislead and pass off foreign artifacts as the real thing.)
Frank then took us to the other best place for buying souvenirs in Santa Fe. Across the Plaza, under the covered walkway at the Palace of the Governor’s are Native Americans selling jewelry and pottery/figurines. Rain or shine, they have a lottery each day to see who gets a coveted spot to vend. The rules are (1) you have to be Native American, and (2) the items you sell have to be made by yourself or members of your family.
Celia’s former co-worker Frank and his wife Barbara took us out to eat local Santa Fe southwestern cuisine at Maria’s; then we settled in to play with their cats Lucky and Lola.
Celia: When ordering enchiladas in New Mexico, you will be asked if you want red or green sauce. The most fun is to say “Christmas”: red and green sauce!
Frank had told us that he didn’t need an alarm clock; their cats would wake up at 5:40 AM. The next morning, Frank got to sleep in. Terry opened his eyes to see Lucky staring back at him, perched on his sleeping bag at 5:40 AM
Day 5: July 8
Went out to a late breakfast with Celia’s co-workers again at Tecolote Café – then found a dingy, lively sports bar (which I loved by the way – reminded me a lot of Griff’s in Houston) to watch Zidane issue a headbutt . . . and Italy take the World Cup (boo!).
Celia: It was place called the Green Onion, although a clover leaf was painted onto the satellite dish. Rocky’s, the other sports bar Frank told us about, was closed.
I was rooting for Italy, mainly because my friend Michelle had been rooting for them. But having a soft spot for Zidane, having watched the France-Brazil final in 1998, I thought a Gallic victory would be a sweet swan song for Zidane. France was the superior team throughout the match; they played better, but just couldn’t score. And then that headbutt . . .
Then we headed out to the Santa Fe Museum district (it’s called ‘Museum Hill) – and it turned out there was this international folk art festival. So we wandered around the festival – there were a few pieces I thought were interesting and I might’ve bought – if I had had a job. But one thing stopped me – a lot of the stuff was from India, China, Peru (all places I had been in the last 4 years), so I knew how much the retail prices were in those countries. I couldn’t bring myself to pay 5x, 10x or 100x what they were charging me 2 or 3 years ago. But Celia bought something from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan – since she and Joe didn’t buy anything from there during their trip in 2002-2003.
Celia: It seemed like something of high quality made by a craftsman in the China, Peru or Thailand compared to something of equal quality made by a Native American craftsman is still going to cost less when purchased in the US, even with middleman inflation. No matter what, cost of wages, and cost of time spent in craftsmanship is so low in countries on manana time . . . .
We met up for another dinner (lesson learned – now that I’ve left Texas . . . stop expecting barbecue to be good. Not everyone knows how to smoke brisket).
Celia: Finally got to try my frito pie at the Cowgirl Hall of Fame (really, that’s the restaurant’s name.): A snack bag of corn chips torn open, with chili poured over it, sprinkle with cheese and some chopped onion. It hit the spot in its own way.
Day 6: July 9
The day of crazy driving! The first thing . . . well, this was the first day we didn’t have a good route planned out – instead we only had a vague idea (um. . . Four Corners . . . uh . . . Monument Valley?) – so we ended up on some crazy back roads of New Mexico (285, um . . . shoot, I’m looking at the map here, and I can’t even figure out what roads we took.
Celia: For the anally curious: From Santa Fe head north on 285. At Hernandez, take 85 north. At Tierra Amarilla, take 64 west to Teec Nos Pos in Arizona. Then 160 north to Four Corners. From there on, 160 east to Cortez and on to Mesa Verde.
For all the stereotypical image of New Mexico’s landscape being dry and desert like, there are a lot of thickly forested areas up there in the north.
We passed the Four Corners Monument going one way (much cheesier than I remember it being back in 1996) and took a detour to the very cool Mesa Verde National Park.
Celia: Way back on Terry’s first visit, you just drove up and snapped a picture of yourself in a corny pose at the crossroads of New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Arizona and left. Four Corners is actually on Navajo land, so now the Navajo Nation collects $3 admission fee per person, but there’s a wooden platform for photographers, and a twenty shaded booths selling jewelry and fry bread.
Mesa Verde is stuck in the southwest corner of Colorado – and aside from possessing some very cool views – they also have a large number of Anasazi (or some very, very, very old native American) cliff dwellings. From several thousand years ago . . . which are still holding up very well today. We took a trip into one of them that involved climbing up and down 32-foot wooden ladders, crawling through a tunnel, burrowing through some other crawlspaces and some cliff side hanging. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to see more than one of the dwellings – as we wanted to get on (or at least I did) towards the Grand Canyon.
Tip for future visitors. Most of the coolest cliff dwellings can only be seen on ranger guided tours, which seem to be happening variously every half-hour. Your first stop in the park should be the visitor’s center to sign up for these tours (there’s a token cost of $3 person, not covered by the National Park pass.) You can’t crash or buy tickets for a ranger-guided tour at the cliff dwellings; you need to have a ticket from the visitors’ center.
I was really fascinated by these cliff dwellings and the history. The Balcony House we saw was about 700 years old. 700 years ago, Sukothai was the ‘capital’ of Siam. Marco Polo was traveling in China. We think of America as such a young country with a very short history, but we often forget abut the other peoples like the ancestral Pueblans who lived here before us had very sophisticated cultures.
So on our trip out of the park, we resolve to try and make it to Monument Valley , Arizona – but then we get hit with our 6th rainstorm of the trip. Yes, it’s day 6. Yes, it rained every single day so far. Actually – it’s all very good – cooling and getting rid of the dust. But today it was annoying since we didn’t want to drive too far in the rain, so we ended up in the very tiny town of Bluff, Utah (near Twin Rocks, Utah) at the Desert Rose Inn.
Celia: So far the drive hasn’t been as hot, because there are afternoon clouds and showers. But this afternoon drive through Utah gave us the most spectacular lightning show we headed west into. Another thing you don’t get to see much in California.
I mentioned above that the Desert Rose Inn was my favorite hotel of the trip. What wasn’t to like? Big wood building, nice cosy beds, view of a great thunderstorm, not too expensive . . . and free wi-fi! While I tried to fix my spyware-impaired computer, hunger took us down to the road to the Cottonwood Steakhouse.
And that was great! They did a really good roadside steak. Celia and Joe had “Polygamy Ale -> Cause’ you can’t have just one!” They gave us bandannas and our drinks were served in boots and the Italians eating dinner stared at us the whole entire meal. You can’t buy entertainment like that, folks.
Celia: Terry ordered the beer for us! Did I mention that Terry is a teetotaler? The boots: they’re plastic cups shaped liked boots, lest you think I let my beer be tainted by the odor of Tony Lamas.
The steak was very good. Under the circumstances (tired from driving, disappointing lunch at Triangle Cafe), I enjoyed it more than the steak I had later at Bouchon.
Day 7: July 10
We drove through the very, very scenic Monument Valley area of Utah (but didn’t stop, my car is NOT an off-road vehicle). At the Hogan Family Restaurant in Tuba City, I had the best price-to-performance ratio breakfast of the entire trip. Actually, forget breakfast . . . $1.99 for two eggs, bacon, potatoes and toast is a winner anytime of the day.
Celia: Outside of Tuba City, we stopped to look at a little roadside attraction: dinosaur tracks. I was looking forward to seeing them in a natural setting. We also saw some fossilized bone forms and bone shards. And lots of petrified dinosaur turd. They don’t ever seem to mention this in documentaries, perhaps because they’re too polite, but there’s a lot of petrified dinosaur turd around.
On our way between Utah and the South Rim – those “Roadside Cleanup sponsored by Jake’s Beauty Salon and Television Repair” or whatever signs were pretty prevalent. And I got to wondering – could controversial organizations sponsor those signs? Could the next mile of trash pick-up be sponsored by, say NAMBLA? the KKK? The Spartacus League? Communist Youth of Tucson? The John Wayne Gacy Fan Club of Flagstaff? Am I the only one who wonders about this stuff?
Celia: No. I’m wondering who is John Wayne Gacy? Is he related to John Wayne Bobbitt?
When I first conceived of this road trip – I hadn’t really planned to take 10 days to get from Houston to Sacramento – I was just thinking about a couple of extra days – and I only had a couple of stops in mind – the Grand Canyon and Thomas Keller’s Bouchon in Las Vegas. So of course, I was eager to get to the picturesque South Rim as quickly as possible – but after 7 days in the wilderness, I was not prepared for the masses of tourists we encountered quickly at every stop. But the views? Awe-inspiring. Fantastic. Totally worth the trip. We quickly rented a second tent and set up camp and took the shuttle bus to the Hermit’s Rest (western end of the rim trail on the south rim) – where we encountered, yes more rain, and lots of Europeans.
Celia: With so many visitors, you’re encouraged to use the shuttle system to get around as much as possible. There’s three routes, all run very frequently, and it’s free. Plus the drivers keep up a very informative and entertaining banter.
Dinner that night, if it could even be called that, was the worst meal of the trip. Pre-made sandwiches from the market, snatched from the shelves moments before they closed. I picked up a po-boy (made with square white bread, how dare it call itself a po-boy!)
“This is awfully bland and tasteless,” I complained, masticating the sandwich in the darkness at our campsite. “I don’t even taste the relish I saw in the package.” It turns out I had grabbed Terry’s turkey sandwich (intended for breakfast) by mistake.
That night we took part in a special ranger program – a ranger gave an interesting lecture on native legends about the stars . . . but more importantly, I can now easily find Cassiopeia and Ursa Major. Even though I knew where they were before; they’re much easier to find now.
Celia: It was a full moon night, so the program was featured as a moonlit walk, which was after ranger’s talk on stars: how to spot them, and native legends. I wanted to go on the walk, but we were tired and had to be up early the next morning. Still, I got to see the Grand Canyon in awash in moonlight, which is something special.
Day 8: July 11
Woke up early in the morning to hike down to Cedar Rim (How early? How’s 5:15am strike you?) Glad we got up that early because it was HOT.
Whew. I almost died again in the Grand Canyon (last time I went into the Canyon, I hit the wall bad during my trip in the summer of 2004) –
Celia: Well, duh, of course it’s going to be hot if you start hiking down into the canyon at 9 AM in July 2004! “We’re starting the hike down the South Kaibab trail at 6 AM,” I told Joe and Terry with a steely glint in my eye.
This time, it was the stupidest injury of all time. I was breathing hard (because I’m out of shape) – and I was drinking from my Camelback at the same time. So of course, I choke on the water and start coughing. And now that I’m coughing, I cough so hard, that I cramp up on one side. So on the hike back up to the rim, every 200 yards or so (or at the end of each switch back) I cramp up again. Then start coughing. Everything hurts. And it’s hot. Man that was a stupid way to hurt myself.
We decide at the end of the hike to ditch our second night at the Canyon – having done the three easily accessible areas of the South Rim, and instead have lunch at the historic El Tovar Hotel overlooking the rim of the Canyon before heading out for Vegas.
What?
VEGAS, BABY! VEGAS!
Before we got there – we had a few attempts at seeing Route 66 (it goes through St. Louis. . . down through Missouri . . . Oklahoma City looks oh so pretty, you’ll see, Amarillo, Gallup New Mexico, Flagstaff Arizona, don’t forget Winona. . . KINGMAN, Barstow, San Bernadino) but were soon on the way to Vegas.
Celia: We also stopped to watch the Grand Canyon IMAX movie in Tusayan, which was filmed in 1984. Its age shows. I noticed that certain geological structures in the movie had eroded quite a bit in real life a mere 22 years later.
A little backstory about myself. I’ve really disliked Las Vegas for much of my life. And it all stems back to 1988. In 1988, one of my cousins sent out wedding invitations to my family on my mother’s side. We’re a large family (my mom is the youngest of 13 kids, and I’m #28 of 32 cousins) – and we’re based all over the world ( Canada, USA, Thailand , Italy, Switzerland, Hong Kong). It was supposed to be this HUGE shindig – the guest list was really impressive (Richard Nixon? Henry Kissinger? Dan Rather? People still argue today over who was supposed to be there). So everyone wants to come to this gigantic wedding . . . which was supposed to take place over the Christmas holidays in Los Angeles. I had been looking forward to this for weeks . . . if not months. Most of my cousins coming to LA? Heck yes! We were going to Disneyland and playing large games of street football. It was shaping up to be a great Christmas.
So of course, once everyone shows up – there’s no wedding. (Was there ever going to be one? I don’t know – you might want to ask someone older). Which was okay with me – because, hey! we’re still going to Disneyland and hanging out at the beach right? WRONG!
Someone had the bright idea for everyone to go to Vegas. Keep in mind this is the Las Vegas of 1988 – when the only kids’ area was Circus Circus. Otherwise there was absolutely nothing to do for us kids. What a rotten Christmas. I still remember the Christmas dinner – $100 US a head (a lot of money now . . . an enormous sum of money in those days) – and it was burnt and chewy beef wellington. Celia says it was the Stratosphere – I’m not sure. Was it even built then? I do remember a large rotating restaurant high above the city. And all of us oddly facing out the window in the same direction. Christmas was ruined in my eighth grade eyes – and not any number of subsequent trips (even the 1991 UNLV basketball camp or the trip in 2003 when I ended up watching the Roy Jones, Jr./John Ruiz heavyweight fight) changed my mind. Yes, I can keep a grudge.
Celia: I share Terry’s sentiments almost exactly; I’ve hated Vegas since that disastrous Christmas family trip. For me, I was skeptical about any wedding taking place, since there was no formal wedding invitation sent out, only a letter that named dropped the guest list: Eddie Murphy? Richard Nixon? Too good to be true. It was the “Crown Prince of the UK” that made me smell a rat. To you and me, he’s the Prince of Wales, AKA Prince Charles. All my relatives blew bucks on buying tuxedos; I picked up a dress from the Esprit outlet.
Anyways, this stupid Las Vegas trip was right after a series of challenging final exams and all-nighter papers; I’d had to rush packing stuff out of dorm for winter break. For this stressed out basket case, the glittering, flashing lights; stale, desiccating smoky air of indoor casinos, and constant slot-machine cacophony was the last thing I needed to relax and get over my first semester at Cal.
But, after a couple of Christmas parties when I learned how to play craps… and more importantly, the move of high end restaurants to Vegas (Robuchon, Guy Savoy, Commander’s Palace, Nob Hill, CraftSteak, just to name a few) – and most importantly for me, Thomas Keller’s Bouchon – well, I wanted to go through Vegas just so I could eat there.
But I’m getting ahead of myself, heck we haven’t even gotten to Vegas yet. And it was HOT. The temperature reached 109 (according to my car) – the highest point of the trip right near Hoover Dam.
But soon we were there – rounding the corner and seeing that famous view (It’s more fun at night). And getting lost in the Excalibur Hotel. And checking in.
Celia: It’s rather disorienting to go from one of the most spectacular sites wrought by Mother Nature over millennia to the most outrageous Sodom and Gomorrah built by 20th century man. With so many people who visit the Grand Canyon on day-trips from Las Vegas, I’m sure I’m not the first person to be struck by this observation.
By the way, Excalibur Hotel sucks. They charge you a mandatory $1 per day for local calls, whether you use the phone or not. I’m not going back there again.
More than enough has been written about the ability to find ones way around in Vegas (nearly impossible on the first day) – so enough about that, but some indecision about where to eat dinner led us to hit the MGM Grand . . .Buffet style! Old Skool!
Have you seen the documentary on Bravo – “The Deadliest Catch” – about Alaskan king crab fishermen and the difficulties of their job and just how risky it is to catch king crab? My heart really goes out to those guys. Doubly so, because that night I put away about 20 crab legs. Good stuff.
We called it an early night – especially because of the bloating and turned in early, determined to hit Vegas hard the next day.
Celia: So far, through out the trip, I’d been yanking Terry’s chain about eating Chinese food in some out-of-the way Chinese restaurant. Beef with broccoli. Iridescent-red sweet and sour pork. Las Vegas has picked up on catering to the palates of the Asian gamblers who provide so much of the takings. At the buffet, I picked up some Mongolian Beef over rice that was surprisingly good. (The lamb chops were also surprisingly good, amazingly enough they weren’t overcooked.)
Joe didn’t believe me. They he tried it. “Yeah, the onions in it are pretty tasty!”
Day 9: July 12
. . . and it’s still triple digits on the thermometer. After some unsuccessful attempts to find the Simpson’s house (it’s in Vegas you know) – Celia and Joe decide to hit the mushroom-shaped pool that’s only 3 feet deep, while I hit the craps table.
I have terrible instincts . . . I should’ve just lit out when 4 shooters in a row crapped out. Even more worrying, I had the world’s most annoying gambler try to talk to me the entire time (I pretended I didn’t understand English well) – but she continued on anyways. Who gets drunk at 9am? Wait a sec, I’m in Vegas. So I quickly blow $100 and it’s LUNCH time.
I had Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill in Caesar’s Palace on my mind. I’m kind of of a mixed mind on Bobby Flay – I mean, he’s everything that’s bad about the celebrity chef, plus he comes off as really arrogant on ICA and the original Iron Chef showdown. But I really like Boy Meets Grill. And friggin’ Bourdain said the Vegas outlet of Mesa Grill was pretty good. But his southwestern cuisine – was it innovative because he was in New York? How would it fare in . . . well the Southwest? Especially since we had just come from Texas , New Mexico and Arizona ?
Pretty well actually. We started with this goat cheese “queso fundido” – which was awesome, but how hard is it to make goat cheese good? Actually I kind of regret ordering that – because it took an appetizer off dinner. And then I had this chicken/green chile hash and it was really, really tasty. Maybe not $18 tasty, but still damn good. And the restaurant was really, really well appointed. I could see why chefs were moving to Vegas. Large spaces, freedom – and heck they didn’t really have to make money. All they had to do was draw people to the casino. I was pretty satisfied.
Celia: I had similar misgivings about Bobby Flay: the episode where he jumps on top of his chopping board is just anathema to the Thai in me. (1) All craftsmen have a serious respect for their tools of the trade; and musicians pay respect to the spirit of their instrument by wai-ing before they start to play. (2) The foot is considered the most profane part of the body, it’s very rude to point your feet at anyone. You’re not even supposed to kick doors shut with your feet, which other cultures might do for convenience.
But my grilled lamb kabob cobb salad was really good. Joe’s pork sandwich also had a good kick. “This is spicier than anything we had in New Mexico,” he remarked in surprise.
After lunch, we ride the monorail around town a little bit – heading to the Wynn (where we had some expensive and way-too-rich ice cream) and we saw the biggest celebrity of the trip (actually the only celebrity of the trip) – Chris Kamen, center of the Los Angeles Clippers heading in while we were heading out. All this activity had me beat, so I went back to take a nap before our date with Thomas Keller.
Celia: The monorail is Las Vegas’ best kept secret, and the casinos work pretty hard at keeping it that way. The stations are ill-signed, hard to find and entail long, long detouring walks from the platform to most destinations. The only saving grace is that it’s got air-conditioning. Otherwise it’s probably just as fast to walk from destination to destination as taking the monorail. At $5 a ride it ain’t cheap. And the $20 for 20 ride discount card for locals is only available in downtown, which is several miles from the nearest monorail station.
Sometimes I think I’m way too influenced by Anthony Bourdain. I should form my own opinions on what is good and right with eating and food and such. But why do I agree with him so much already? What’s good about food and eating – the good stuff. Street food. Something simple made well. Anyways his tribute to Keller’s French Laundry (from Kitchen Confidential – or was it A Cook’s Tour?) – well, it put in me the desire to eat at French Laundry. Or Per Se. But since Vegas was on the way, Bouchon was booked.
At first I was a little worried – checking the internet reviews – there seemed to be as many negative reviews as glowing ones. Sure Bourdain loved it (see “The Nasty Bits) – but the people on eGullet seemed to be very serious. I didn’t take the ones on CitySearch as seriously though.
I shouldn’t have given those reviews a second thought, because it was pretty fantastic. First off, it’s almost impossible to find (it’s located off the Venezia Tower lobby/check-in – which is on the SECOND floor of the Venezia Tower) – there’s almost zero signage that point towards the restaurant.
We were seated quickly (yay! reservations) and it was spacious. The menus were these neat brown paper folded over napkins – and they unfolded like a sack lunch or something.
Choices – wow there was so much to think about. Frankly, the first thing that leapt out was the rotisserie chicken. Yeah, I know – chicken is usually for those people who don’t know what they want to eat. I agree, I agree. But Bourdain (there he is again) – said it was fucking good. Who pays $25 for poulet roti? Well, apparently I do. Celia got the flatiron steak with frites and Joe got the duck breast. We also got six oysters and an order of salmon rillettes.
First the bread came quickly – with some nice brittany butter (yum!) and some nicely warmed pistachios (also good). Then, the rillettes. Smoked salmon, poached salmon – stored under clarified butter, eaten out of a jar onto some croutons. We jokingly asked the waiter if they made it to go. Oh man, even writing about them now, I get hungry. Just wonderful (yes, I’m running out of adjectives).
I’m going to refrain from trying to describe just how good the entrees were – just that it was the best damn chicken dish I’ve ever had. And probably top 5 for all time restaurant meals. And probably #1 or #2 for western meals in a restaurant. Special mention goes to the delicious onions (as part of the ragout that came with the chicken).
For dessert we split a pot de crème (again, delicious) and an order of bouchons – which were these champagne cork-shaped brownies with a melted chocolate center. Absolutely perfect.
Celia: The best thing about the bouchons was the outer crusty dry skin that contrasted with its molten core. A while back, Joe came across a brownie recipe in the Wednesday food section that had tip on making brownies with crusty exteriors: stop the cooking process by submerging the brownie pan in an ice-water bath. Maybe that’s what they did at Bouchon also.
They way they push these bouchons at Bouchon: I don’t know why they feel the need to stoop such cutesy trick. With the air of sharing an insider’s secret, the waiter will tell you that it’s the best desert that’s not listed on menu, but it’s a special that’s always available. So why don’t they simply list them on the menu; it’s not as if chocolate, butter and sugar ever go out of season?
Not everything about the meal was 100% perfect – the waiter was – especially towards the end of the night – less than attentive (especially after joking around with us in the early parts of the meal) and the pomme frites that came with Celia’s meal were only lukewarm (still tasty, but you can think of how good they would’ve been while hot).
So, I really liked it.
From there – Celia and Joe had tickets to one of the 5 (or 9 or whatever) Cirque du Soleil shows in town (O) – and I went to blow my last $100 on the craps table. This time the money lasted 3 hours – and if I was smart (which I’ve proven a few times that I’m not) – I would’ve left when I was up 60 or 70. Alas, I spent it all. Again.
Celia: Joe fell asleep during the latter part of O. It’s those clown segments that really slow down the pace. I picked O because it was the only show that also features water. Acrobatics are hard to execute, as are synchronized swimming routines. To have performers who can excel in both just boggles my mind. The costumes, engineered to be worn in and out of water; and seen wet and dry, weren’t as spectacular as those in conventional CdS dry-land shows.
Day 10: July 13
Getting out of the hotel proved to be just as difficult as checking in, but after wrestling with the bags and retrieving the car and filling up with gas – we were on our way! Cal-i-for-nia here I come, right back where I started from! Open up that Golden Gate !
Some cursory looks at the map – combined with some tenth-day-of-the-road-trip-itis – well, we decided early on to skip Death Valley – since it didn’t look like there was an easy direct route from Vegas to I-395 via Death Valley – so we took I-15 down to Barstow and then connected with I-395 up the backside of the Sierra Nevada .
Now I grew up in Los Angeles, and went to school in the Bay Area – so most ways of getting up and down California (US101 and I-5 mainly, but also some Hwy 99 and Hwy 1) I was very familiar with, but I had only been up 395 a couple of times – once to hike Mt. Whitney before leaving for China the first time in 1996 and I visited Mammoth once when I was younger – but I have no idea when.
So the idea of heading up the Eastern Sierra Nevada was novel – and we planned to enter Yosemite from the “backside” near Mono Lake and take 120 across to Modesto and then enter the Bay Area.
But first – Barstow !
Barstow – it’s the main stop between LA and Vegas – and for years the giant McDonald’s was the only food stop out here. Then there was the In-N-Out (used to be the last In-N-Out heading east – now of course, they’re in Vegas and Arizona) – nowadays, Barstow is FULL of fast food joints. We quickly narrowed our lunch choices down to Bob’s Big Boy (home of the original double decker hamburger – what the Big Mac was copied from) and Tommy’s Original Hamburgers (a Los Angeles institution – the real best fast food burger in LA, just beating out In-N-Out. But the chili will get you in the end.)
Not wanting to deal with a potential chili disaster at Tommy’s, we opted for Bob’s Big Boy, got the worst service of the trip (but a tasty burger) and soon headed up 395 towards northern California.
Our first stop was Manzanar. For those unfamiliar with American history, Manzanar was the main internment camp – for Japanese Americans – during World War II. They have a really nice visitors’ center – but mainly it was sad to think this once happened here in the US. American citizens . . . born and raised here – yet detained due to the flaring of racial hatreds and war. Lessons for our current era? Perhaps – but at least I learned something that day. It was a real sobering lesson, but probably not the best place to go into an in-depth discussion about Manzanar here (this email is long enough, no?)
Celia: Joe and I had been to Manzanar in January 2004, before the visitor center opened, so we were looking forward to seeing it on this visit. We weren’t disappointed, the exhibits are really engaging, but it is sad that something like happened. Sadder is the idea that it could happen again. Manzanar is a place everyone should visit at least once.
Celia had mentioned that she had heard about some gas station eatery in Lone Pine or Big Pine – at a Mobil station – and we were google-texting and calling people and chambers of commerce, and no one had the slightest idea of what we were talking about. Proving that we were only half smart . . .
“Hey, my dad texted me and he said we have to try the Whoa Nellie Deli – it’s at a gas station, right outside of Yosemite”.
Well, you, faithful reader, have obviously already seen what we couldn’t. Yes, that was the place – located just outside Lee Vining, CA, overlooking Mono Lake, mere steps from the “back” entrance of Yosemite on Route 120.
What? A gourmet restaurant located at a Mobil Station? Well, yes. And a damn sight better than Pizza Hut too. We had grilled elk, bison meatloaf and the famous lobster taquitos. And they were really good. Add in the great view and the casual atmosphere, this place may have gotten some votes or at least honorable mention for best meal of the trip. Seriously, if you’re there – you HAVE to go. I will not argue about this.
Celia: Equally entertaining was the gull which swooped down and snatched a slice of pizza from an unattended table.
So our plan was to find a room in Lee Vining, sleep for the night and head out for Yosemite, Modesto and Mountain View in the morning. We didn’t take into account – it was the weekend. Every little lodge and hotel along Mono Lake was booked up. We looked at the map and said – screw it – let’s push onto Fair Oaks tonight.
Wow, was that a mistake – or at least the route we took. 395 didn’t connect directly with Highway 50 – so we took this very, very windy path up 89 (that may have been the most difficult driving I’ve ever done – and I’ve driven in Thailand) then FINALLY ending up in Placerville and Highway 50 only 40 miles to Fair Oaks.