Road trip notes, week 3
Sunday, June 15th, 2014 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chanaleh
Week 3 photos are here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/93788108@N00/sets/72157644768851090/
Full trip photos (all in one album) are here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/93788108@N00/sets/72157644898605426/
Day 18: Monday, June 9
• Awakened to the sound of jackhammers at 9am. Made pointed comments to the clerk at checkout that it would have been less disruptive had we been alerted of the imminent construction schedule at check-in the night before. Got blank looks. Sigh.
• Got breakfast at the Windmill Coffee House, a lovely little hippie enclave built in "the historic Lincoln Windmill". Tofu scramble, anyone?
• Drove down to Monterey.
• Parked at the marina and walked over to Old Fisherman's Wharf. Made a motel reservation (this roadtrip has been made possible by Orbitz).
• Moved the car up toward the Aquarium.
• Decided against actually visiting the Aquarium since admission was like $38pp and it was already midafternoon.
• Walked all the way down Cannery Row, stopping to look at (and wade in) the ocean.
• Got all the way down to Breakwater Cove and FINALLY found the sea lion colony I was looking for, at the Coast Guard marina! We only had a few minutes to hang out and watch them because we had to get back to the car and feed the meter, but it was awesome.
• Beat the metermaid back to the car (yesss).
• Went to the brewpub and enjoyed a couple of pints and happy-hour specials, since it was about 4pm. This was a Perceivable Joy.
• Browsed some of the crappy gift shops in Cannery Row.
• Drove on to Pacific Grove and checked into our motel.
• Ventured out around dusk to walk out on Lovers' Point (the eponymous little park next to our motel) and try to watch the sunset over the Pacific (except for the wall of cloudbank offshore that screened most of it).
• Tried to get dinner right around 9pm, only to discover that most of the little neighborhood restaurants had just closed. Finally found the "International Restaurant" that was open late, had some dinner, and walked back home.
Overnight: Lovers Point Inn, Pacific Grove, CA
Day 19: Tuesday, June 10
This was our big Pacific Coast Highway drive day!
• Got up, checked out.
• Headed down past Carmel and onto the PCH.
• Drove down a few hundred miles of beautiful coastline (yet more crazy winding cliff driving).
• Stopped at a deli in Big Sur for coffee and sandwiches, and ate them at the next scenic overlook.
• Stopped at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park to walk out and look at McWay Falls (not as impressive as it presumably would be in a non-drought year, but still awesome).
• Stopped outside Piedras Blancas to view the elephant seal colony (and make friends with some squirrels, who are obviously not at all hampered by the prominent "do not feed the wildlife" signs).
• Stopped briefly in Morro Bay State Park to try and see some otters (no luck, just some pelicans).
• Passed by Hearst Castle and Pismo Beach without stopping.
• Located and checked into our motel.
• Drove back to Nipomo, on Aunt Cindy & Uncle Jim's recommendation, in order to have dinner at Jocko's Steak House, which is apparently a local institution and the best steak on the Central Coast. It was impressive.
Overnight: Days Inn, Santa Maria, CA
Day 20: Wednesday, June 11
• Got up, checked out, gassed up.
• Breakfast at the Denny's (this roadtrip has been brought to you by Denny's) down the road from the motel.
• Drove clear across the state and up to Death Valley.
• Finally, a few miles inside the actual borders of the park (in the western mountains), came to the Panamint Springs Resort which is the only gas/food/lodging for miles around. Luckily, they had plenty of tent sites (though the cabins were full up) and we settled in.
• Dinner at their restaurant, which was surprisingly good (including a beer list of about 100 different craft and microbrews, and a salad much more impressive than I would expect to get in the desert).
• Went back to the campsite and sat up til late talking -- too warm for a campfire.
• The ONE NIGHT we camped in the actual desert, it was a full moon and too bright to see any more stars than we get at home. #planning
Overnight: Panamint Springs Resort Campground, Death Valley, CA
Day 21: Thursday, June 12
• Got up, broke camp.
• Breakfast buffet in the resort restaurant, also surprisingly good (though I was already feeling a little faint even in the halfhearted air conditioning).
• Drove around first to the visitors center at Furnace Creek, where the temperature displayed on the sign out front got up to 114 degrees before we left there.
• Drove on down through the valley to the Badwater Basin salt flat, which is the lowest spot in the world -- 287 feet below sea level. No idea what the recorded temperature was there, but it felt like walking through a giant hair dryer. We walked out at least a quarter mile into the basin before I felt too woozy to continue.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
etrace felt great the whole time, though.
• Drove back up through the Artist's Palette section and across to Zabriskie Point before exiting the park.
• Crossed into Nevada (a repeat state = no increment, the count is still at 10) and stopped in the town of Pahrump for gas and beverages.
• Drove on to Las Vegas and checked into the Excalibur (where I had stayed on my one previous trip to Vegas with my mom).
• Flailed a bit on dinner options before deciding to just get burritos at the Baja Fresh in the lobby on our way out.
• Spent the evening just walking up the east side of the Strip for about two miles, detouring through Paris (where we ended up in Bally's on the other side and stopped to get drinks) and the Venetian.
• Caught the tail end of the Volcano show outside the Mirage.
• I was trying to get us to the Bellagio to see the fountains, but once we finally turned back south and crossed the street,etrace totally ran out of steam, so we crossed back again and took the monorail straight home instead.
Overnight: Excalibur Resort & Casino, Las Vegas, NV
Day 22: Friday, June 13
• Slept in (mandatory anytime we had more than one night in the same place).
• Went out to see what we could get at the half-price ticket booth -- we might have tried to see Penn & Teller except that they were on hiatus, but otherwise I wanted us to see a Cirque show, preferably Ka, which was at the MGM Grand right next to us. But the prices they had at the booth were actually *higher* than the summer special MGM was running directly, so we went back to the hotel and booked online for Ka at 7pm.
• Went down to enjoy the in-house Round Table Buffet (not the cheapest around, but if we'd taken the monorail both ways to something on the other end of town, it would have worked out to more anyway) for lunch.
• After lunch,etrace hid out in the room while I went to pick up our tickets from the MGM box office and then spent an hour in the pool deck.
• Showered, changed, and headed out around 6:15 for our 7pm show.
• Our seats were literally in the second row, on the far left corner, which was a slightly weird but overall awesome perspective (we could look around behind us to see what was going on all over the theater, and some of the aerial stuff happened directly over our heads). Ka trades off some of the usual Cirque acrobatic spectacle for an actual (if still slightly abstracted) storyline, but I think the way they use the seven (!) different rotating stage floors is worth the price of admission.
• Emerged from the show and briefly pondered going somewhere to get food, but decided to go back to the room instead and then never left.
Overnight: Excalibur Resort & Casino, Las Vegas, NV
Day 23: Saturday, June 14
• Got up, checked out, packed up the car (internal temperature approximately 130 degrees), and got the hell out of town.
• Once we were clear of the main city sprawl, stopped at the next food-looking sign we saw, which turned out to be a little cafe at the Las Vegas Speedway (!) with really good burgers.
• Drove on across the Utah state line (state #11), stopping at a visitors' center in St. George where we picked up a pile of tourist brochures.
• Stopped at the outlet mall in St. George so I could look for new Tevas (the pair I'd been wearing was giving up the ghost) at Famous Footwear. Found them.
• Drove on another 20 minutes into Hurricane, the next actual town before you get to Springdale and Zion National Park. Noticed a 24-hour laundromat (unattended, behind a closed hair salon) and decided to stop and do the wash, so we hung out for a good 2 hours dealing with that.
• Found that all the cheap motel rooms in the area were back in St. George, so booked one and drove back there once the laundry was done.
• Went out to find dinner and ended up deciding on the Chuck-O-Rama Buffet, right across from the outlet mall where we'd been several hours earlier. ("Because two buffets in two days is what makes this country great!")
• Made two more stops at sporting goods stores trying to find a different pair of Tevas that would fit me better (with an adjustable heel strap), but didn't find any, and ended up sticking with the ones I'd bought that afternoon.
Overnight: Knights Inn, St. George, UT
Full trip photos (all in one album) are here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/93788108@N00/sets/72157644898605426/
Day 18: Monday, June 9
• Awakened to the sound of jackhammers at 9am. Made pointed comments to the clerk at checkout that it would have been less disruptive had we been alerted of the imminent construction schedule at check-in the night before. Got blank looks. Sigh.
• Got breakfast at the Windmill Coffee House, a lovely little hippie enclave built in "the historic Lincoln Windmill". Tofu scramble, anyone?
• Drove down to Monterey.
• Parked at the marina and walked over to Old Fisherman's Wharf. Made a motel reservation (this roadtrip has been made possible by Orbitz).
• Moved the car up toward the Aquarium.
• Decided against actually visiting the Aquarium since admission was like $38pp and it was already midafternoon.
• Walked all the way down Cannery Row, stopping to look at (and wade in) the ocean.
• Got all the way down to Breakwater Cove and FINALLY found the sea lion colony I was looking for, at the Coast Guard marina! We only had a few minutes to hang out and watch them because we had to get back to the car and feed the meter, but it was awesome.
• Beat the metermaid back to the car (yesss).
• Went to the brewpub and enjoyed a couple of pints and happy-hour specials, since it was about 4pm. This was a Perceivable Joy.
• Browsed some of the crappy gift shops in Cannery Row.
• Drove on to Pacific Grove and checked into our motel.
• Ventured out around dusk to walk out on Lovers' Point (the eponymous little park next to our motel) and try to watch the sunset over the Pacific (except for the wall of cloudbank offshore that screened most of it).
• Tried to get dinner right around 9pm, only to discover that most of the little neighborhood restaurants had just closed. Finally found the "International Restaurant" that was open late, had some dinner, and walked back home.
Overnight: Lovers Point Inn, Pacific Grove, CA
Day 19: Tuesday, June 10
This was our big Pacific Coast Highway drive day!
• Got up, checked out.
• Headed down past Carmel and onto the PCH.
• Drove down a few hundred miles of beautiful coastline (yet more crazy winding cliff driving).
• Stopped at a deli in Big Sur for coffee and sandwiches, and ate them at the next scenic overlook.
• Stopped at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park to walk out and look at McWay Falls (not as impressive as it presumably would be in a non-drought year, but still awesome).
• Stopped outside Piedras Blancas to view the elephant seal colony (and make friends with some squirrels, who are obviously not at all hampered by the prominent "do not feed the wildlife" signs).
• Stopped briefly in Morro Bay State Park to try and see some otters (no luck, just some pelicans).
• Passed by Hearst Castle and Pismo Beach without stopping.
• Located and checked into our motel.
• Drove back to Nipomo, on Aunt Cindy & Uncle Jim's recommendation, in order to have dinner at Jocko's Steak House, which is apparently a local institution and the best steak on the Central Coast. It was impressive.
Overnight: Days Inn, Santa Maria, CA
Day 20: Wednesday, June 11
• Got up, checked out, gassed up.
• Breakfast at the Denny's (this roadtrip has been brought to you by Denny's) down the road from the motel.
• Drove clear across the state and up to Death Valley.
• Finally, a few miles inside the actual borders of the park (in the western mountains), came to the Panamint Springs Resort which is the only gas/food/lodging for miles around. Luckily, they had plenty of tent sites (though the cabins were full up) and we settled in.
• Dinner at their restaurant, which was surprisingly good (including a beer list of about 100 different craft and microbrews, and a salad much more impressive than I would expect to get in the desert).
• Went back to the campsite and sat up til late talking -- too warm for a campfire.
• The ONE NIGHT we camped in the actual desert, it was a full moon and too bright to see any more stars than we get at home. #planning
Overnight: Panamint Springs Resort Campground, Death Valley, CA
Day 21: Thursday, June 12
• Got up, broke camp.
• Breakfast buffet in the resort restaurant, also surprisingly good (though I was already feeling a little faint even in the halfhearted air conditioning).
• Drove around first to the visitors center at Furnace Creek, where the temperature displayed on the sign out front got up to 114 degrees before we left there.
• Drove on down through the valley to the Badwater Basin salt flat, which is the lowest spot in the world -- 287 feet below sea level. No idea what the recorded temperature was there, but it felt like walking through a giant hair dryer. We walked out at least a quarter mile into the basin before I felt too woozy to continue.
etrace felt great the whole time, though.• Drove back up through the Artist's Palette section and across to Zabriskie Point before exiting the park.
• Crossed into Nevada (a repeat state = no increment, the count is still at 10) and stopped in the town of Pahrump for gas and beverages.
• Drove on to Las Vegas and checked into the Excalibur (where I had stayed on my one previous trip to Vegas with my mom).
• Flailed a bit on dinner options before deciding to just get burritos at the Baja Fresh in the lobby on our way out.
• Spent the evening just walking up the east side of the Strip for about two miles, detouring through Paris (where we ended up in Bally's on the other side and stopped to get drinks) and the Venetian.
• Caught the tail end of the Volcano show outside the Mirage.
• I was trying to get us to the Bellagio to see the fountains, but once we finally turned back south and crossed the street,
etrace totally ran out of steam, so we crossed back again and took the monorail straight home instead.Overnight: Excalibur Resort & Casino, Las Vegas, NV
Day 22: Friday, June 13
• Slept in (mandatory anytime we had more than one night in the same place).
• Went out to see what we could get at the half-price ticket booth -- we might have tried to see Penn & Teller except that they were on hiatus, but otherwise I wanted us to see a Cirque show, preferably Ka, which was at the MGM Grand right next to us. But the prices they had at the booth were actually *higher* than the summer special MGM was running directly, so we went back to the hotel and booked online for Ka at 7pm.
• Went down to enjoy the in-house Round Table Buffet (not the cheapest around, but if we'd taken the monorail both ways to something on the other end of town, it would have worked out to more anyway) for lunch.
• After lunch,
etrace hid out in the room while I went to pick up our tickets from the MGM box office and then spent an hour in the pool deck.• Showered, changed, and headed out around 6:15 for our 7pm show.
• Our seats were literally in the second row, on the far left corner, which was a slightly weird but overall awesome perspective (we could look around behind us to see what was going on all over the theater, and some of the aerial stuff happened directly over our heads). Ka trades off some of the usual Cirque acrobatic spectacle for an actual (if still slightly abstracted) storyline, but I think the way they use the seven (!) different rotating stage floors is worth the price of admission.
• Emerged from the show and briefly pondered going somewhere to get food, but decided to go back to the room instead and then never left.
Overnight: Excalibur Resort & Casino, Las Vegas, NV
Day 23: Saturday, June 14
• Got up, checked out, packed up the car (internal temperature approximately 130 degrees), and got the hell out of town.
• Once we were clear of the main city sprawl, stopped at the next food-looking sign we saw, which turned out to be a little cafe at the Las Vegas Speedway (!) with really good burgers.
• Drove on across the Utah state line (state #11), stopping at a visitors' center in St. George where we picked up a pile of tourist brochures.
• Stopped at the outlet mall in St. George so I could look for new Tevas (the pair I'd been wearing was giving up the ghost) at Famous Footwear. Found them.
• Drove on another 20 minutes into Hurricane, the next actual town before you get to Springdale and Zion National Park. Noticed a 24-hour laundromat (unattended, behind a closed hair salon) and decided to stop and do the wash, so we hung out for a good 2 hours dealing with that.
• Found that all the cheap motel rooms in the area were back in St. George, so booked one and drove back there once the laundry was done.
• Went out to find dinner and ended up deciding on the Chuck-O-Rama Buffet, right across from the outlet mall where we'd been several hours earlier. ("Because two buffets in two days is what makes this country great!")
• Made two more stops at sporting goods stores trying to find a different pair of Tevas that would fit me better (with an adjustable heel strap), but didn't find any, and ended up sticking with the ones I'd bought that afternoon.
Overnight: Knights Inn, St. George, UT