We woke up early and finished packing, heading to breakfast at the Inn around 8:30am. We had pretty much the same thing we did the day before — oatmeal and granola. Around 10:30am we checked out. We couldn’t find a person to checkout with and wanted to buy two t-shirts with the 29 Palms Inn logo on them. While seeking out someone I ran across a lady from Austin who commented on my Flying Frog Brigade shirt. She said she was in a band with a dude who was opening for them on their current tour. Turns out that she and the other lady there were in a band together as well. Unable to find anyone to take our money we just left it in an envelope under their keyboard. Here’s hoping they got it!
We headed west on US-62 to Yucca Valley, passing a horrendous wreck in Joshua Tree where a car was cut entirely in two. From Yucca Valley we went north then west through several valleys via CA-247 before coming across I-15 at Victorville. Next we went along historic Route 66 past a Emma Jean’s Holland Burger Cafe and a graveyard for retired planes off to the west. A short distance down the road at about 1pm we arrived at Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch, a small but very densely packed area with hundreds of rebar trees with glass bottles as “leaves” as well as other sculptures and objects. Despite the omnipresent heat there were a few trees offering some shade, allowing Michelle to relax at a picnic table while I walked around and took pictures. That wasn’t enough to stop my phone from overheating and requiring me to let it cool off before being able to take more pictures. Annoying, but I get it, it was blazing. Just before leaving a lady from Los Angeles (not more than 50 miles away) asked where we were from. She said this was her first time out this way and she’d always wanted to see it. Crazy, she lives so close!
After about a half hour we headed back on the road to Barstow and drove the first (or last?) mile of I-40. A few exits later we drove the short distance north to Yermo to eat at Peggy Sue’s 50s Diner. It was OK, I guess. The original diner was still there but only a small part of the sprawling compound of expansions over the intervening years. Michelle had a BLT and I had chicken fried steak. It wasn’t as good as the one at John’s Place in Twenty-nine Palms, that was for sure.
We hopped on the highway (I-15 this time) and immediately hit a traffic jam. We were stuck in it for only ten miles but it took two hours. Turns out it was because of a lane closure of no more than a hundred feet and nobody was even working it on the road that day! Some cars were overheated on the side of the road — 110F+ heat with no shade. Breaking down in that part of the country can be a life-or-death experience. Free of the bottleneck we passed the odd exit for Zzyzx Rd., stopped at a rest stop, and the thermometer at Baker. As soon as we passed from California into Nevada there were casinos, cheaper gas, and even a couple of amusement parks. In under an hour we were back in Las Vegas and turned in our rental and took the shuttle (even catching a glimpse of the Sphere as a basketball due to the WNBA All-Star game) to the airport. We made it to our gate with about thirty minutes to spare before boarding — whew! We picked up a quick bite to eat — a cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese for Michelle and an Italian sandwich for me — and were in the air before we knew it.
The flight was largely unremarkable. Michelle and I synched our watching of the first few episodes of Ghosts (US, not UK) and I watched a few other minor things. As we were approaching Raleigh it got quite turbulent and, upon landing around 4:40am we were greeted by our first high humidity in a week. We felt so… hydrated. Addison picked us up shortly after 5am and we were home shortly after before the bottom fell out and it rained heavily for a few hours. An unexpected, but not unwelcome, end to our fun adventure!
