Anita and Willem Lijpers from Holland

On my way back from Big Sur, I stopped to look at an astonishing view and ended up talking to a nice person who was doing the same. Her name was Anita, and with Willem her husband, she was on a cross country trip. They are from Holland, they visited their son in Virginia, and drove across country ending in Los Angeles in a few days. These pictures do not do them justice. They flagged me down 10 miles down the road to offer me coffee. Isnt that nice? This is what I used to get from travelling, meeting new people. It makes me sad that I am unlikely to see them again. No, I dont know why they look so sad, but I think it is an artifact of my bad photography.

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I so enjoyed meeting them and it makes me sad I am unlikely to see them again.

Short Trip to Joshua Tree (postmortem)

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Instead of just hauling ass down the road for a month or two, I decided to start off slowly and do a few day trip to Joshua Tree.  Many interesting things were learned and here is a list of a few of them.

 1. Check the weather.  We had a record setting blizzard during the exact time I chose to go.  It was exciting but maybe not the best choice.  For the kids and adults of Joshua Tree, this was a peak experience.  They had not had a snow storm like this for at least 11 years, according to one native.

2. Many exciting new symptoms seem to be present when I travel when sick, without the usual medication and in a blizzard.  Memo to File: Do not do this again.

3. Just a little further down the road from Joshua Tree is a 24 hour medical center.  The staff was very nice to me and let me hang out until I felt better.  They were particularly impressed with the blizzard. A reminder that even medical workers on the night shift can act like big kids.

4. The Safari Inn was a perfect little motel for a great price.  

5. The Crossroads Cafe was very good and I immediately fell in love with the hostess.

6. The mexican restaurant is just so so, but it is open 24 hours which is nice.

7. Google Maps does not check the weather when giving directions and nearly got me killed.  

8. Joshua Tree is really nice when there is a foot of snow dumped on it.

9. Azuza, CA apparently stands for A - Z in the USA.

10.  CalArts is right on the way to Joshua Tree if you take the Santa Clarita route.

11. Its important to pack critical items (like vitamins, medication, food, etc) in a place where you can trivially find them in your car when you are sick, havent slept for 24 hours, you are in the middle of an amazing snow storm, and everything in the car has been shuffled several times.

Other Notes:

12.  The wind farm on the way to Joshua Tree is really interesting.  Plays on size and scale.

13. There is a nice donut store back up the road from Joshua Tree in Yucca Valley.