Road Trip to Arizona

This is the last picture of our old house. This was taken on Monday, May 31 just before Lisa left with Bailey. She and Bailey were going to go down highway 5 and then east on I-10.

I was going to have a much more difficult monday, tuesday, and wednesday. Neither of us wanted to be in a car with Zachary for 2-3 days. When we went up to the mountains in March, Zachary threw up in the car and cried for six straight hours. The plan was for Lisa's mom to fly up Wednesday, I would hand her Zachary at the airport, and she and the Boo would fly down to Arizona where Lisa would be waiting. Then Jackson and I would drive east over the Sierras spending the first night beside Mono Lake. The second day we would drive to Las Vegas. The third day, friday, we would continue on to Phoenix.

Wednesday morning (June 1) was hectic to say the least. The boys and I spent the night at the Wood's house. Which was great except I dilly-dallied too long there eating breakfast and didn't leave until 8:45.

I kind of knew that I was in trouble when I was driving to our house. I was supposed to meet Lisa's mom at the airport at 10:45. When I got home, I had half an hour to pack half a room of stuff into the Celica and do some last minute cleaning of the house. Zachary, who decided he wanted to be carried around that morning, followed me around screaming at the top of his lungs all the while I was doing this.

We got to the airport at 11:15. Lisa had asked me to wait with her mother until she left. I was hoping she could take three bags of stuff with her, because the Celica was completely filled with stuff and I had driven to the airport with the driver's seat almost all the way forward. I did not want to drive 900 miles with my knees in my chest.

That was rather silly since Lisa's mom had brought a backpack of stuff herself and you are only allowed two bags, so when Jackson and I left them at the gate around 12:00, we had to take two of the bags with us. I decided to drop the two bags off at my office at NASA and pick them up when I flew back up for a meeting on the 8th. The only problem there was I had put Lisa's cellphone which her mom had given me at the airport in one of the bags I was going to leave behind, and I forgot to take it out before I drove off.

It was 12:30 before we were finally on our way. My original plan was to drive east on highway 108 and go over the Sonora Pass. I had checked the Caltrans website at Eric's house and it had said that all the Sierra passes were open. I decided to change my plans and go over the Tioga pass instead. The Tioga pass is the highest pass over the Sierras at 9950 ft and goes through the Yosemite National Forest so I thought it would be beautiful. It is always the last pass to open. In 1998 it didn't open until July 1, so I was excited that I apparently was getting lucky this year.

I always enjoy driving on the smaller highways that lead to the mountains. There is very little traffic and a lot of open space. I've always loved rolling hills covered with oak trees. I knew there won't be any oak trees in Arizona, so I tried to really appreciate them as we were driving by. This picture was taken at the start of the foothills next to an old ranch. The bad news was the sky was getting cloudy and the clouds were gathering to the east.

All the roadsigns said that the Tioga pass was open, so I (naively?, stubbornly?) continued to drive up the mountains. At 3000 feet it started to sprinkle. Also somewhat ominously it was getting colder outside. A little voice in my head was telling me "if it is raining at 3000 feet, it will be snowing at 9950 feet". I knew this was true but hoped to beat the storm and get over the pass before it was closed.

I got all the way up to the ranger station at the entrance to Yosemite. I was 20 miles from the pass. The ranger stopped me and asked me where I was going. As I told her "just over the pass", she got a call on her radio. She held up her hand while she listened. They had just closed the pass.

This was all very upsetting because it was hardly raining at the ranger station, I had chains with me, Jackson was telling me his head hurt from driving, and it was now 5:30 in the afternoon. You can't argue your way past a ranger, though, so I had no choice but to turn around and go back down the mountain.

I had a tough decision to make. We had a reservation at a hotel in the town of Lee Vining which is on Mono Lake on the eastern side of the Sierras. I had really wanted to see Mono Lake and continue our drive to Las Vegas on the eastern side of the Sierras. I am also a stubborn person when I can't do something I want to do. My choices were to go north and try the Sonora Pass, go way north and go over highway 50, or concede defeat and spend the night on the western side of the mountains.

I decided to try the Sonora Pass. Highway 50 would add another 100 miles onto our already extended first day's drive. Giving up would make for a very long second day and I had no way of knowing whether the storm would let up. The clouds were heavier to the south, so I thought I might have a chance.

The rain started earlier, at around 2000 feet and it was coming down very heavy. It was sure to be snowing at the top. My only hope was to outrun the storm. I drove as fast as my caution would allow. The rain turned to sleet and then to snow. I was still pretty low on the mountain, around 4000 feet. I thought for sure my goose was cooked, but I had gone too far not to keep going until someone stopped me.

It was snowing heavily, but it wasn't yet sticking to the pavement, so the road remained clear. I passed the first highway gate, the thing they close when they close the pass. So far, so good. There were still cars that occasionally passed me going the opposite direction, which was a good sign too. We passed through Strawberry, the next to last town before the pass. I started to get nervous because we were so close, maybe 10 miles away. Just out of the town limits, we passed two Caltrans snowploughs and a CHP SUV going the opposite direction. This meant they were going to close the road.

We got to the last town before the pass, Dardenelle, population 2, when all of the sudden we drove out of the storm. It was still snowing a little bit, but there were patches of blue sky. I knew I was home free now. I also knew that I was probably the last car to go through before the road was closed.

The road to the pass is beautiful but incredibly steep. At one point the road had a 26% grade. I had never driven on a highway that steep and couldn't imagine driving it if the road was icy. The pass itself is beautiful. It is the second highest pass, 9624 feet. At the top there is an alpine valley with beautiful windblown rocks and trees. Jackson was sleeping in the car, but I carefully jumped out of the car and snapped a picture. We had reached the summit. I had made the right decision.

The storm caught up with us on the way down the mountain. We were now on the eastern side of the Sierras in the high valleys and still had a long way to go. The storms pile up on the western side, and usually the storms peeter out once you get to the eastern side. In this picture, taken on Highway 395, we are literally on the edge of the storm. To the left of the road it was snowing and to the right there was blue sky

We stopped in a little town called Bridgeport for dinner. Jackson was cold and whiny, but I made him stand still long enough to take this picture. I have a knack for randomly choosing the one fancy restaurant in town and taking Jackson there to eat. You never know if Jackson will behave himself or if he will climb under the table, spit his water at people, and make general four year old mischief. I bribed him with a dinner of french fries and milk and he behaved himself

We got to our hotel in Lee Vining around 10:00 at night. It was snowing lightly. It seemed that the storm was going to follow us for our entire trip. The next morning we headed off to the tufa rocks on Mono Lake. Mono Lake rests in another one of those fabulous alpine valleys. There are sheer mountains on two sides. I am definitely my mother's son because I love open spaces, places you can go where there are no people, no buildings, just a two lane highway. I also really like how quiet it is in places like this. For a person who is normally surrounded by traffic noise, airplanes flying overhead, and computer noise, quiet is something special. This picture of Jackson looks westward on the eastern face of the Sierras

We got to Mono Lake and hiked along the path to the water's edge. I guess sometimes it can get very busy at Mono Lake because there was a main parking lot and an overflow lot. When we arrived, only one other group was there, an RV full of German tourists. Lee Vining had been full of German tourists too. Jackson didn't want to walk all the way down to the lake. There was snow on the ground from last night and he wanted to play in the snow.

The drive to Las Vegas was mostly uneventful. I managed to run over a ground squirrel just south of Mono Lake. Or I should say a ground squirrel committed suicide by running under my wheels. I'm the only car on the road, and this stupid squirrel can't wait until I go by before it tries to cross the road.

We went through a few small towns, every one of them has a speed trap where the speed limit goes from 70 to 25 in a short distance. Lisa's grandfather warned me of them, so I was careful. We finally had outrun the storm and it started to get hot.

After almost two days of open spaces, Vegas was quite a shock. The city is large and very spread out. New housing is going up every where. It sounds like this would be easy, but I got lost trying to find the "Strip".

I had this great plan about how I would take Jackson to Treasure Island to see the pirate show. That, of course, was another one of those parent visions of what children want to do that has no connection with what the kids actually want to do. When we got to the hotel room, all Jackson wanted to do was go swimming in the pool. I had to wait until the pool closed before I could get him over to Treasure Island. Jackson annoyed a group of Japanese tourists for 25 minutes waiting for the show to begin. When it did get going, the cannon fire scared Jackson. He thought it was real. I tried telling him it was make believe but he didn't believe me. He asked me to go so we left.

Las Vegas has a lot to see but there are so many people there. We were there on a thursday. I can't imagine the crowds on the weekends. If I go there again, I'll probably just stay at one of the fancier places and never leave the grounds.

When we woke up Friday morning, we discovered that our storm had caught up with us again. It had rained during the night and turned cold. We drove off on the last day of our trip. We were headed for Hoover Dam.

Hoover Dam was something that I wanted to see. Jackson didn't care if he saw it or not. He did like to look down from the observation window and took some pictures of the water below.

After Hoover Dam we crossed into Arizona. There is not much to say about Northern Arizona. The countryside is pretty uniform and fairly boring. Lisa had given Jackson some new tapes to play in his tape recorder during the trip. I had strategically hidden them in the trunk until thursday afternoon. I did this because I knew what Jackson would do when he got them. We listened to "Skip to My Lou", "Farmer in the Dell", and "Yankee Doodle" continuously for 9 hours friday. Jackson took his tape player into the diner where we had lunch. Even though I turned the volume down, a lady three tables away came over and asked us to stop. Clearly she was not a parent, because I had been listening to it for four straight hours without cracking up.

Finally we arrived at Grandma's house in Mesa, where we were staying until our house was ready. It had been a long trip, over 1000 miles in three days, and a good experience. I really enjoy taking road trips with Jackson. It is something I will look back upon fondly.