So for our first road trip with the new (for us) car, Don and I traveled to southern Arizona to visit with friends who used to live in the Bay Area. This would be our first longer than 250 mile trip in the new car, an opportunity to take it on back roads, freeway and just spend an entire 10 days and about 2,000 miles in a number of differing climate zones.
Don had a week off, and Sue has been retired since June....actually September since I would normally have had the summer off. We left on Saturday February 18th and loaded the surprisingly roomy front boot and back trunk with all we would need for the next 10 days. Since the 2000 Porsche Boxster has its engine under the main body of the car, there is no engine to deal with under the front hood. The interior is similar to a sailboat in that there is lots of storage designed into the car, and no space is left without a tuck away for this or that ... there are, though, no cup holders... which is actually good ... spilling anything in here would leave us both feeling very down.
We left Oakland close to 6:30AM and had decided we would get the first couple of hours under our belt, then stop for breakfast. We chose not to take the dreaded Hwy 5, as we had done 4 years of mad dash to SoCal when Jaime was at the Univeristy of Redlands and so we took 120/99 down for a spell to see some agricultural areas we have missed ... I had been in Merced recently when taking the Amtrak train on my way to Yosemite and we had transferred to the bus shuttle there. The driver had wended his way thru town, affording lovely views of Victorian homes and I had a feeling Merced offered more than I was aware of, never having been there.
So we sort of knew it would make a good place for our first break, but when we exited 120 we were hard pressed to find anyplace to have breakfast. We drove out toward the new UC, but this was proving all wrong ... and as we headed back into downtown we finally found a cafe not far from the Amtrak station. Imagine our surprise as we entered the cafe in Merced to find a gay couple at the table near us .. then a family grouping arrived and was blended with great diversity ... Already Merced was changing my mind about rural areas in California.
Breakfast was very good ... breakfast burritos fabulous, great service, good food ...
Once back on the road, we decided to try an even more rural back road which eventually led us to Allensworth State Park, which I had heard about for a long time, but had never visited nor knew exactly where it was. It is a small park which is dedicated to Lt. Allensworth and African Americans who helped found California. This park has a few houses and history about some of the folks who lived here when California was first being settled. This visual details a number of African Americans who were instrumental in the growth of California and the United States. Remember to click on any photo for a closer look
Eventually we did get onto 5 just south of Bakersfield so we could drive the Grapevine .... Once down on the LA basin side we took Hwy 215 to skirt around LA on our way to Riverside and the Mission Inn, a favorite magical hotel which we had not been to in many years. We arrived close to 4PM which was within our window of opportunity ... Sue quickly found a local shop whose bathing suits were 1/2 off and arrived at the magnificent pool just as the last soccer tournament player was wrapped in a towel and dragged away for dinner.
I had the entire marvelous pool to myself for approximately 15 minutes doing laps in crawl, sidestroke, breaststroke and the best, backstroke as it afforded a look at the slowly darkening sky with lite wrapped palm trees. It is a wondrous place to swim, being at most 4 feet deep, but wider and longer than many pools ... it feels very luxourious .. and to have it to myself was just a special feeling .... especially since it was a Saturday nite .... I lounged in the hot tub, again alone .... then swam a bit more with a 9 year old who arrived ... and was very respectful of space ..... then returned to our room and prepared for dinner ... what a day 1!!
