Road Trips : Vegas : Page 3

14 April 1997

 

I found a really great breakfast spot the next morning. The 24th Street Cafe (24th Street near Chester) was an old coffee shop, which may have pretensions toward being "chic", but fortunately the prices and clientele haven't caught up yet. Great waitress who called me "honey" and kept refilling the coffee cup, great local regulars who had conversations about things you rarely hear in SF (crops, the church bazaar, gas prices), and great hash browns.

   

 

A quick trip to the Salvation Army for the thrift store fix, a stop by the gas station (pump first THEN pay), and Bakersfield was history.

 

I followed the route of what used to be US 466 out of Bakersfield, through Tehachapi, Mojave (the town and the desert), and Barstow. Currently, the road is California 58 from Bakersfield to Barstow and I-15 from Barstow to Las Vegas. It's interesting to see the terrain get progressively hillier and browner moving east from Bakersfield. This part of the Mojave Desert is actually pretty far above sea level (upto 4800 feet at Mountain Pass near the Nevada border). I even felt inspired to take a few nature pictures, knowing full well it might ruin my image.

 

 

Barstow is a strangely wonderful place. Its main reason for existing seems to be its role as the junction of a number of major highways. One of these highways used to be Route 66, the "mother road", before it was replaced (at this stretch at least) by the cross-country Interstate 40, which begins in Barstow. Barstow was a pilgrimage I had to make because Greensboro, my hometown, used to be the eastern terminus of I-40 (it now cuts all the way through to Wilmington).

  

 

Main Street is home to much roadside beauty, including the El Rancho Motel and the Beacon Bowl and Coffee Shop (East Main Street), where I felt compelled to have lunch. As luck would have it, a busload of high school age Belgian tourists felt compelled in the same manner at the same time. Each of them paid individually...with travelers checks. This tended to slow down service tremendously as there was but one increasingly harried waitress. Good food though. I was well-fed for the remaining desert crossing.