Day 1: Los Angeles to Needles, CA
My friend Molly and I are traveling through the American Southwest for the next few days. Here’s some chatter from the road.
Oh, man, I’ve been anticipating this trip with a GREAT DEAL (yes, ALL CAPS deal) of pleasure. 10 days on the open road with my wonderful friend Molly. And now we’re on our way!
After picking up M from the airport and acquiring a rental car with fuss set to “minimum”, we caravaned to my cousin’s house near LAX, so that I could park my car for the week. This is a time-honored Haycox tradition, dating back to the 1960s.
In my burning desire to get the hell out of Los Angeles, we drove quite a ways before stopping for lunch. Victorville, in fact — former home of the Roy Rogers/Dale Evans Museum, and current home to more pawn shops that we have ever seen in a three-block stretch. We stopped at a reasonably authentic diner, where we were served with all-beige food (mine: creamed corn, biscuit, buttermilk chicken, mashed potatoes, white gravy). Delicious!
We hopped off the 15 to ride the old Route 66 for a while. Kind of odd to see these cracked and weedy remnants of the once-grand route. The drive was dramatically beautiful — lots of California high-alt landscapes, rain, occasional flashes of lightning, snowy peaks.
We landed in Needles for the night, so that we could cross the Arizona border in the AM. Needles is … well, Needles. As the local restaurant put it, on a poster: “Needles, California: Known for Absolutely Nothing!” (also seen: a t-shirt reading “You Mess With Me … You Mess with the Whole Trailer Park!”) Our motel room smelled clean (very important), but had zero noise insulation from room to room. Sigh.
Another beige dinner before collapsing into bed. The food may have been a gastrointestinal mistake, but the restaurant (as you may imagine from the displays mentioned above) was not. Our waitress, complete with black eye, called me “Girl” and Molly “Little lady;” our table had built in boxes containing the best paperback jokebook humor around; and there was beer. Win-win-win!
Motel room art.
A selection of cards from local businesses, including “Doggy Styles” pet grooming. Click on any pick to see larger version.
Off to Arizona!
Molly’s quote for Day 1:
Rural living at its finest!
At least Devore didn’t put an apostrophe in ITS on their sign.
Happy trails, ladies! =)
Vicarious road trip! I have never driven Route 66 until now! Can’t wait for Day 2. May your meals get more colorful. Love to you both.
Needles, Ca – who thinks of the names of these places? We had an interesting experience in Weeds, CA at Christmas. I later found out that Weeds has nothing to do with cannibus, but in fact was named after a man in the late 1800’s with the unfortunate last name of Weeds.
Those Needles folks are charmers. LOVING the trip so far, continuing on.