Vacation - Day Two - The Nightmare continues

Our adventures from Denver to San Diego continues.

Another Early Start
In order to make up time, we awoke early Sunday morning, ate breakfast, and were back on the road by 8:00.  Our next stop was Temecula, CA, 12 hours away.  We were going to make two quick stops for food: lunch in Utah and dinner in Las Vegas.

Utah - Indian Cliff Drawings
For those who have not visited Utah, it is a very pretty place.  That said, it is a desert and very dry.  It is also remote.  Cell coverage is sparse and the distance between towns is great.  if travelling this stretch, make sure your prepared with food and water.  The car operated fine, for which we were very thankful.

Lunch was in Fremont Indian State Park.  We brought sandwiches and took a quick 20 minute walk around the trail to look at the Native American cliff drawings.  The only inconvenience was a 10 foot wall of water had destroyed the only picnic bench with shade at the park the week before, so we ate in the sun.  (For those not familiar with the American Southwest, there are no real "shade trees" in the desert).

Arizona - Cops, Cops and more Cops
We drove through the tip of Arizona.  Only 30 minutes or so, but just thought we'd mention it.  Lots of Highway Patrol Officers were on this stretch of the road, but nothing happened.

Nevada - Dinner in Vegas
From the border to Vegas was uneventful.  You have to love Nevada if only because it is obvious when you cross the state border.  Casinos pop up not less than 1 mile from the state line.  We stopped at a Panda Express on the south end of Las Vegas.  Las Vegas is really not my kind of town.  I don't drink, I don't gamble, the architecture is gaudy (to say the least), and I prefer wide open spaces to crowds of people.  We were happy to simply drive through.

At this point we have driven 9 hours with less than an hour in breaks.  Even the stop for lunch was a quick stop to stretch our legs.  So, we indulged ourselves with a 40 minute dinner break.  The California border was only minutes away and just 4 and a half hours to the hotel in Temecula.  Things were looking up.

California - Revenge of Good Traveling
Between Las Vegas, NV and Temecula, CA lies the Mojave Desert.  Technically, the Las Vegas is in the Mojave, but at least it is civilization.  Once you leave Las Vegas, its desert the entire way.

What we did not count on was traffic between LA and Las Vegas (LV).  If things had gone as originally planned, we would have passed this stretch of road around noon.  However, we were now passing through it at evening.  Using the GPS on our mobile phones we received updates on the traffic situation.  It wasn't good.  Everything from the CA border to past Barstow was Red, indicating stopped traffic due to multiple fatality accidents.

The worst stretch was just past the NV/CA border.  It took roughly 3 hours to travel 30 miles.  We stopped at a Shell station in the desert (if you want to know which one, drive the route.  It is the ONLY station in the Mojave) to use the facilities and buy water.  I counted around 8 cars pulled over there due to overheating.  Hoods in the air and steam rising from the radiators.  We climbed back in the van and continued on our way.

Without traffic we would have arrived at the hotel around 8 o'clock (this includes the time zone change).  As it was, we arrived at close to midnight.  There was only once when, due to poor California signage, I had to quickly cross 3 lanes of traffic to make an exit (I call this my "California Driving Birthright Traffic Change - usable once per day by those born in CA").  There was no one behind us, so no odds of accident, but it did wake everyone up!

Next day we could begin our 'real' vacation with our first pleasant stop.  Given we had spent the last 24 of 48 hours in the car driving , plus 8 hours at various car shops, we decided to sleep in a bit before heading out.