Eastbound Interstate 40

Day 19 - Eastbound Interstate 40

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Chris and Bill were up early with coffee and dog duty, while Audrey and I opted for beauty sleep.

Once we were all gathered around the French press, we hopped into Chris' new truck with three dogs and went out for breakfast in Solana Beach.

The dogs had a great time at Del Mar dog beach before heading over to view the construction progress on Chris' winery and restaurant. It looks like it's going to be a very cool space.

Back in Carlsbad, we loaded up our car and said good-bye to the newlyweds. It was a short but sweet visit.

With the mileage at 5,333 and at our furthest southwest point away from home, we officially began our journey east at 12:15pm.

I navigated while Bill drove us to Interstate 40 East. It was a dramatic drive through the barren rolling hills nearing the Mojave Desert. The road was wide open except for the occasional trucker.

We had a final In-N-Out burger fix for a late lunch at 3pm in the desert town of Barstow. With a full tank of gas, we were back on I-40 for Needles, CA. Bill continued to drive, giving me my first day off. I think he felt guilty about my four hours behind the wheel in LA traffic.

It was 106 degrees when we pulled off around 5pm to set up camp at a gimmicky Pirate's Cove Resort.

We carefully placed our tent away from the volcano shaped ant hills and plentiful horse poop. For the first time on our trip, we had the tent flaps at optimal ventilation.

We savored a bottle of Chris' Pinot Noir, but skipped the campfire. Too hot!

It didn't take us long to realize that the tent fly must go. We needed total air circulation, so we stripped the tent down to it's bare shell.

It was down to 100 degrees when we took to our air bed. We had a full panoramic view of the light show above. Although I felt somewhat exposed, it was spectacular sleeping under the stars!

There was a time during the night that we actually got into our bags.

	Photo 1 [Map]

---

Sent from my iPhone by My Vacation app (www.myvacationapp.com)