Roadtrip to the Southwest

It's hard to believe that it's been more than a year since our accident.  As you may have already noticed, there have been long periods between blogs, partially because it was hard to sit at the computer for any length of time, and partially because there was very little going on besides recovery much of the time.  Adding insult to injury, my camera doesn't seem to be working and many of my photos from the past few months didn't turn out.  Hopefully I will be able to change that as this year moves forward.  For now my camera phone will have to do.

Like many others around the country we have been experiencing a very cold winter.  However, we did manage to get out of town between snow storms and spent the month of February chasing after sunshine.  I found that I was able to travel in the car fairly well, but we kept much of the tourist activities to a minimum and concentrated on making short stops to visit with various family and friends throughout the Southwest.  

Even in Southern California we couldn't completely escape the cold.  As you can see, there were bits of snow on the hillsides of this large wind farm we passed on our way into the desert.  I won't bore you with my opinion of wind farms other than to say that I find them very unattractive. This one went on for miles and most of them weren't even working.

 Eventually we left them behind though and we were able to enjoy the arid beauty of these Joshua trees instead.

We passed through the town of Barstow, California which is located in the middle of the Majave Desert.   I did share these photos on my Facebook as this area is where I spent part of my growing up years when my dad was stationed here while in the military.  In the distance you can see the words Calico on the side of the hill.  Below it is an old silver mining ghost town. It was bought out by Knotts Berry Farm in the 1950's and my dad used to work there on the weekends driving an old mining train that went around the edges of the town. While we didn't stop in for a visit, I have many fond memories of spending hours up there with my brothers exploring the old buildings, riding on the train and taking burro rides up and down the little street. I see from this brochure that it must be much more commercialized than it was when I was a little girl.  Isn't that true of just about everything?  It's now a county park and is listed on the California Historic Registry.  If you are interested you can learn more about the history and images of Calico here

Eventually, we made it to Las Vegas where we spent four days at a beautiful resort hotel on the outskirts of the city.  The pool was gorgeous.  Unfortunately, it was too cold to use it!  Still, I loved looking out at the mountains in the distance.

We had some lovely sunshine here but don't let the pictures fool you.  As you can see, I was still in long sleeves and a winter vest.  We met up with my oldest cousin and his wife here and enjoyed some yummy pizza.  Another day they took us on a tour of the town.  For all you football fans we got to see where the new Raiders stadium is being built. 

Finally, it was time to hit the road so we headed into Arizona before crossing back over to San Diego.  The desert in this area is completely different from the Mojave. We hit some rain but eventually the sun came out and there were lots of interesting rock formations.

 

After a night in Phoenix visiting friends we headed to San Diego where we met up with another of my cousins who lives in the hills outside of the city.  She has a wonderful view of the valley and the hills beyond from her back yard.  She tells me that at certain times she can hear the bells chiming from the church below. Lovely!

It rained quite a bit while we were in San Diego as well, but we were rewarded by this beautiful rainbow in front of my cousin's home at the end of the day.

Finally, after two weeks on the road and numerous rain storms and even some sleet we enjoyed our first patch of warm weather in Carlsbad, the town where my family retired to after my dad left the military.  We were only able to spend one full day in the area before meeting our children near Los Angeles but at least we were able to enjoy an afternoon of warm sunshine at the local harbor. 

This was the first half of our road trip and there will be more to share, but for now, thank you for stopping by.  It's nice to be back on line.  Feel free to leave a comment if you so choose.