Week 49 -- California Road Trip

     Friends Terry and Barb Perkins recently sold their Charleston  house

Yes, we followed old Route 66.

to move back to Southern California where they grew up. But, they wanted someone to drive one of their cars to their new home.
     Road Trip!!!
     Cheryl and I took off in Barb's Ford Fusion for the 1,900-plus
mile trip to Hemet, Calif., about 8 a.m. Thursday, May 30. We mostly
went on Interstates 40 and 44 through Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona before going on a California state highway to the Perkins' house.
     But, what a trip! First, we had thunderstorm and tornado warnings in

Found a nice coffee shop in Flagstaff, Ariz.

Bill planned to study the map until he saw this rest stop sign

Joplin, Mo. Skies were pitch black and we got through Joplin about 15 minutes before the storm struck. We had more tornado warnings near Oklahoma City, just days after the big storm in suburban Moore, Okla. With Dick and Debbie McKay's daughter, Mandy, living in Oklahoma City, she texted us the storm's location and got us through, again, about 15 minutes before the big storm hit. The next day, Friday, that area again was hit by tornado with several deaths.
     Our biggest problem in Oklahoma is that we ran though two tollway stops WITHOUT paying!
     Two unmanned booths required exact change and we didn't have it. Alarms sounded at both booths but we went on our way, owing the State of Oklahoma $1.50!!! When we got to Barb and Terry's we went online and found out how to pay the tolls and already have mailed them a check for the big amount.
     There is a lot you can see on this route. There is Albuquerque, N.M., with a tram going up the mountain for a beautiful view. There's the Grand Canyon plus the Grand Canyon Skywalk and the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, Ariz.
     We did none of those things because our driving days were too full. The clear-glass skywalk is about 1.5 hours off the interstate and the Indian tribe charges about $100 a
 person to go on the skywalk.
     We spent the second night of our trip in Flagstaff, Ariz., a pretty college town with a historic downtown area. We found a nice bar next to our hotel the first night and, after some directions from Patrick, went to
 the downtown the next morning and found a

Cheryl, Barb and Terry at San Juan Capistrano.

neat little coffee shop called Late for the Train (next to the tracks) for breakfast.
     That was Saturday morning and we were anxious to get to California. Once we crossed the border into Southern California, we both were surprised -- no heavy traffic, no overpopulated cities, no orange trees, no movie stars.
     For the first 120 miles, we saw nothing but desolate desert. No trees. Just dirt, sand, cacti, rocks and weeds. Not even many cars and no cell service.
     The road was two-lane, extremely hilly -- like riding in a small boat through very choppy water -- just up and down, up and down.
     Finally, we reached civilization, a few small towns with lots of Joshua trees; and then we saw the Southern California we were expecting -- eight lane highway, lots of traffic and cities lumped together where it was hard to tell where one left off and another began.
     We reached Barb and Terry's late Saturday afternoon, had a nice dinner and relaxed. On Sunday, we drove a couple hours to beautiful San Diego. We went to a shopping/dining section called Seaport Village, right on the coast. We spent a couple hours going through cute shops and enjoying the waters and had lunch.
     Then, we got in the car and drove up the Pacific Coast highway for a couple hours, through Oceanside (home of my former newspaper corporation), LaJolla, San Onofre and other beach cities made famous in a Beach Boys' song.
     We stopped at San Juan Capistrano, where there is a Spanish mission first built in 1776. Swallows come back to this mission every March 19, build mud nests and stay until October when they fly farther south for the winter. They have done this for as long as people (Native Americans) have been in that area.
     Much of the old mission still exists. Barb, Terry, Cheryl and I really enjoyed exploring the old mission made famous by the 1950s song, "When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano."
     We drove back to Hemet and left Monday morning for the Palm Springs Airport, on Sonny Bono Parkway and Kirk Douglas Drive and past Bob Hope Avenue. We had collected a couple hundred bottles of shampoo and conditioner from hotels for our Rotary Club's project of donating them to the veterans hospital in Danville, Ill., and to nursing homes and domestic violence shelters. But the airport security would not allow me to take them on the plane. They gave me a sandwich baggie that could hold about 15 and dumped the rest in the trash! Oh well.
     Had a nice flight home and Heather picked us up at the Indianapolis airport and got home about midnight.
It was a fast trip to California -- left Thursday and got home Monday night in time to go to work on Tuesday.
     But we have rested a week and now are getting ready to drive to Bozeman, Montana this Thursday for another three-day drive. Boy, Cheryl and I are really testing our compatibility with these three-day drives cooped up in the car with each other for 11 hours a day!!