Modesto & Cain at Little Lou's - Tuesday June 23 San Jose, CA

I arrived in San Jose Saturday June 20. Sunday through Tuesday days were spent handling the move - getting the car running, moving stuff from one storage site to another. Starting Tuesday night the focus was hanging out in music venues and seeing my jazz buddies. This event was a great start to that. This video should be self explanatory.

Clovis Country - Saturday June 27 Clovis, CA

It had been 9 months or so since i'd seen Dorinda and John. So a couple days with them was a great way to start my trip. I drove up from San Jose on Saturday. I always enjoy that drive because it changes so much and passes through some beautiful country - the valley south of San Jose, the Pacheco pass, the San Luis Reservoir, the farms across the San Joaquin Valley, the remote flat lands along Avenue 12 leading to Millerton Lake. Also, because it ends in a pretty spectacular place - their custom home on 10 acres of ranch, surrounded by 40 acre and 300 acre parcels, overlooking the Sierras. I took the photo looking out their kitchen window.

I arrived late Saturday afternoon, in time for some Golden Margaritas, a lot of catching up, and some dinner.

Sunday was a hot - very hot, 105 degrees hot - lazy day. This was great for me since my week in San Jose had been pretty full. A relaxing "down day" was just what i needed. The big accomplishment for the day was spending a couple hours in the pool. OK, i also booked all my travel for the "gang of 5" trip coming in October.

Monday John and i played golf. It was nip and tuck all day until i blew up on the 16th hole and John won by a mile. But it was still a good day on the golf course.

The Road to Vegas - Tuesday June 30 (visited Tehachapi, CA and the Las Vegas strip)

I said goodbye to John and Dorinda, and headed out for my cross country adventure about 9:30 AM. I drove south from Fresno on highway 99. Just short of 2 hours into the drive I got my first surprise. I have not yet seen the movie MacFarland. Kevin Kostner plays a cross country running coach at a high school dominated by kids of migrant farm workers. Just a movie perhaps, but about 20 miles north of Bakersfield I came across the real town of MacFarland. Looks just like the trailers for the movie.

I headed east out of Bakersfield on 58, and headed for Tehachapi. Tehachapi is known for its wine country and its wind farms. I'd never been there, so I decided to stop there for lunch. Its just a couple miles off the interstate. I found a small, but quite vibrant downtown – art stores, galleries, banks, gyms, etc. I also found a German bakery. It was country store style, with wooden chairs and tables, and lots of knick-nacks, and a ton of hand made signs - “You have the right to remain silent. Use it!”; “House guarded by Smith & Wesson 6 days a week. You guess which days”.

I took a chance on a Rueben sandwich – figured a German bakery demanded it. I'm not a big pastrami eater. When I do eat it, I like mine thin. The pastrami on this sandwich was a foot thick! I only ate half of it, and still I belched pastrami and sauerkraut all the way to Las Vegas.

After lunch I headed back to the highway toward the east. The highway passed by the wind farms on the way out of town. Some of them are HUGE! The highway passes right by one of them. Trying hard not to crash, and operationg the cell phone camera with one hand while driving, i captured a little piece of the windfarm in action.

From Techachapi the route continued across the southern edge of Death Valley - Mojave, and then Barstow - to pickup I-15. This is a desolate stretch of dessert highway. It was a hot day and getting hotter. I stopped for a fill-up and a drink in Barstow - 108 degrees. The last thing you want when driving along this stretch is a breakdown. You are miles from help, in an environment that can challenge survival if lacking the support system a car provides. As a lone traveler, I could not help my mind from worrying about the worst case. How robust are the electronics in my hybrid ? I watched mile after mile, as the outside temperature indication climbed. It would fluctuate up and down a few degrees, but the trend was steadily up. Each time it hit a new high I cringed – 110 “woe”, 111 “oh no”, 112 “oh my god”. When it hit 116 I decided I had to get off the highway and find some shade. I was literally afraid my tires might melt. If the air is 116, no telling how hot the pavement is. When travelling on the highway, moving air dissipates the heat, and the tire rotates so that no one spot is in contact with the hot road for long. When parked, one spot on the tire takes the full grilling from the hot road. I stopped in Baker, CA, in the shade behind an old abandoned restaurant. After sweating in the car for a while, I wandered through a souvenir shop (with the worlds tallest thermometer), and got a drink at a Del Taco. A live exhibit outside the souvenir shop drove the point home. A skillet sits on the sidewalk holding a pair of fried eggs updated freshly every morning.

About 5:30 PM the temperature stopped climbing. I headed back out for the last 90 minutes to Las Vegas. Just before the Nevada border, surprise number 2 popped up. The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Station is massive! Imagine the largest Walmart parking lot you've ever seen. Then create a 5x5 array of them, then put 3 of those next to each other. These are giant fields of mirrors that reflect the sun light onto a central tower, where a thermal generator is located. You can actually see the beams of reflected light, which actually look like it is coming out of the tower (rather than going in to it). I was reminded of the “War of the Worlds” movie. Really impressive !

The state line. Goodbye California.

I hit Vegas about 7:15 PM. It is an adult Disneyland. I cruised up Las Vegas Boulevard just to sight see. It was 112 degrees and the streets were still full of people walking from one place to another on the strip. I stayed at the Stratosphere hotel – the space needle looking place with a 360 degree rotating restaurant at the top. The rooms were nice. But the casino and common areas were pretty low budget. I checked in, unpacked, showered, and grabbed some dinner at the MaCall Grill. My eyes had been bothering me all day – red, itchy, burning, gritty. So I walked a few blocks to a Walgreens to get some drops. The pharmacist insisted I probably had an infection, and so needed anti-biotic drops. So I drove to an urgent care clinic. Yep, conjunctivitis (pink eye) – i'm guessing from either John and Dorinda's pool on Sunday, or the golf course on Monday, or maybe from the dogs? Then back to the drug store to find the pharmacy closed. Its midnight, my eyes are on fire, and I can barely see to use my cell phone to search for a 24 hour pharmacy somewhere near. I found one, and got there. I must say, away from the casinos, I found the people of Vegas to be very nice and helpful.

By 1 AM I was back at the hotel, and determined to get back to my agenda. This is not the way I had planned to spend my night in Vegas. So I went up to the lounge (107th floor) for a nightcap. The place was populated mainly with 20-somethings, and the DJ was blasting club music, and the room was warm. I almost left immediately. But I was determined. So I had one (double) drink. The view was spectacular!

I could see the first casino I drove by outside the edge of town – probably 15 miles. As I drank, suddenly I could see lightening in the mountains outside town (Henderson). Gradually a dark fuzziness engulfed that casino. A thunder storm was making its way across town. I watched it move as I drank my drink. I wondered what it would feel like to be in this glass bubble in the sky when the storm got here. But it was already too late – 2:30 AM – time for bed.