We left this morning from Three Rivers, CA after our visit to Sequoia and Kings Canyon. Our drive took us out to a major 4 lane highway CA 99 and CA 59 that weren’t interstates, but would take us to southern California where we could pick up I-15 taking us all the way to Las Vegas.
Earlier parts of the trip were quite interesting as we drove through the Kaweah Valley and acres and acres of vineyards, orchards with pomegranates, oranges, lemons and limes. This was “Farmville” in reality for sure. South of Visalia, we saw acres and acres of corn as the land was as flat as Indiana. The corn must have been irrigated, though, as it was much taller and more vibrant than that in Indiana this year.
We hit the interstate at Bakersfield and were soon driving along beside Edwards Air Force Base. If that sounds familiar to you, it is the alternate landing site for the space shuttles in the event of bad weather in Florida. We missed the final journey of the shuttle Endeavor which landed for the last time yesterday after 25 missions in space. Today (Friday) the shuttle will travel over the Los Angeles area and eventually end up in the California Science Center in LA.
As we traveled I-15 between the Mojave Desert and Death Valley, we were treated to the largest wind farm we had ever seen. Totally an awesome site in an otherwise desolate, desolate landscape.
The temperatures reached 107 before we reached Las Vegas.
We hadn’t really been aware that it was Friday until we were closer to Las Vegas and we were convinced that half of Los Angeles was on the road to LV. We saw limousines with who knows how many travelers in them as well as hundreds of cars that tended to make the drive more tedious. The exits to the Las Vegas Strip were backed up many car lengths. We decided this time, a “ drive by “ for Vegas was enough as we had been there twice together.
Earlier in the morning, we had made the decision not to stop in Las Vegas and to go on as far as Mesquite, NV on the NV/AZ border. We were so happy to have made that decision and found a very nice room at the Best Western.
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