Jim and April's Roadtrips

The trip down from Crestline was typical LA travel.  Switching from one freeway to another with 6 to 8 lanes each way moving at 60 miles an hour, then slowing to a stop-and-go crawl that kept up for about 30 minutes, during which time we went a total of 3 miles.  Accidents on the LA freeways don’t seem to be as common as I remember, but it doesn’t take much to tie up traffic.  This time it was the result of two tractor trailers trying to occupy the same space at once.

For the next couple of days we will be at Ken and Manola Hackman’s home in Studio City.  We had lunch with them at a small local deli called Marv’s.  I had the best Pastrami sandwich in more than 40 years.  Oh yeah, the last one was also here in LA.  On the way here from Jose’s, we swung through the old neighborhood where I lived when my boys were small.  We moved from this house while I was expecting with Chrystal, my oldest daughter, but this is the only address I remember. …

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I won’t say that visiting California is like coming home, but it is definitely nostalgic.  I only lived in the LA area for about 6 years and it was nearly 45 years ago.  However, in that relatively short time, I found out that something in my genetic makeup needs mountains.  The desert and beach are nice too, but it is the mountains that my heart has yearned for ever since I moved back home.

I could never live here again for the same reason we moved home in 1967.  It is too far from my family.  The members of the clan have changed since then.  My parents and one of my brothers are gone as well as my aunt and uncle.  That doesn’t lessen the ties that hold me there though.  If anything they are stronger than ever.  My children have grown up and raised families of their own.  All of them live in the Southeast.  I expect to have great grandchildren soon and I can’t participate in their lives from the West coast. …

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Although we have been trying to trace down old Route 66 this past week, most of the time we have either been on I40 or within sight of it.  We found lots of interesting small towns and roadside attractions.  We even stopped to photograph many of them.  Yesterday, we left the beaten path.  We decided not to take the interstate highway to Phoenix.

We ignored the urging of the GPS, looked at a REAL map, left the interstate at Winslow, found SR87 and headed south toward our destination.  More than anything else, this impressed upon us how few people travel off “the beaten path.”  We went for miles without seeing another car.  The towns and gas stations were widely scattered in this desert country. At first, the land was mostly flat and empty.  The road was only two lanes and there was no breakdown lane.  In the far distance, we could see the lower ridges of the mountains long before we started to climb. …

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In Memphis and here in Tucumcari, the wifi networks are secured.  It requires a password, not just to use the network, but even to make a connection.  The message says “contact your network administrator.” That would be Jim.  He also had no luck.  I got up an hour early this morning (more on that later) and spent the time digging through my Network Administration class memories and (Thanks to Chet Cunningham for his excellent teaching) figured out how to get around the problem.  Hopefully, if we run into it again, I’ll be able to remember what I did without investing so much time.

So, my early rising is due to Blackberry.  Apparently, they think alarms are supposed to be a relative setting, not a literal one.  When the cell phone changed the system time to match the new time zone yesterday, it also changed the times on my alarms, so they are all going off an hour early.  Needless to say, I fixed the alarm clock immediately, but I couldn’t go back to sleep anyway.  Now I will have to go through my calendar and todo lists today and fix all my reminders, they are also going off an hour early.  What a pain.  This means, I’ll have to go through the same routine every time we cross a time zone.  Very poor design RIM.  Maybe there’s a setting someplace for telling it to STOP THAT.  That will be my preoccupation while Jim is driving today.

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I’ve gotten several derogatory comments about my planning and organizing.  There are those, who shall remain nameless, that think the ideal is to just wander willy-nilly along the road and let every thing be spontaneous.

My reply is, “I’m sorry, but I need to know where I’m going to sleep every night.”  I’ve experienced pulling off the interstate with 500 miles or so behind me and finding an AARP convention has filled every available motel room at that exit.  I want the security of reservations.  We do have a timeline to follow.  While an endless road trip might appeal to our nomadic souls, this one is only a loop with a deadline at the end.  Jim does have to return to work on October 10th.

He also has a commitment for the Combat Camera reunion in Albuquerque from the 22nd through the 25th and wants to spend at least a couple of days each at three other locations along the way.  The timeline requires making an average number of miles each day.

One of my “no room at the inn” experiences involved a blizzard that left me stranded in the mountains.  The people at the local La Quinta Inn were considerate enough to allow those of us who couldn’t get rooms to sleep in their lobby and, not only provide us with pillows and blankets, but breakfast the next morning.  All at no charge.  I have tried to reward them when traveling by using their chain whenever possible.  I find most of their hotels to be clean, comfortable, and inexpensive with all the amenities I require.  Because I was planning ahead, we were able to make La Quinta Inn accommodations for most of the trip.  It has also cut our expected hotel expenses by nearly half.

It has been more nearly 40 years since I drove across country.  The last time, the Interstate Highway system was just beginning to replace Route 66.  Since that time, the venerable old road has nearly gone the way of the Oregon Trail.  One of the things we want to do is trace what’s left of the old road, where practical.  My research indicates some of it is only accessible by bike or on foot, but what’s still paved and in use is being restored in may areas.  We will not be going out of our way for it, there is that timeline we need to follow.  Where we can do, so we’ll be looking at museums, restorations and ruins of the old road along the way.  In fact, one of our non-La Quinta stops is a restored Route 66 location in Tucumcari, NM called The Blue Swallow Motel.

Our itinerary will include several hours a day for side trips and photo shoots.  When you have a reservation and let the motel know ahead of time that you will be late getting there, they don’t require an exact check-in time.  Jim refuses to camp in a tent anymore.  He says he got his fill of that in the military.  I refuse to wander from exit to exit along the interstate looking for a clean, reasonably priced (preferably with free wifi and breakfast) place to sleep.