On pins & Needles

2009 Arizona Vacation - Day 1

Carolyn & I weren't exactly on pins & needles for this vacation to begin but I was beginning to think that we were down to the last pin & needle in our house to bring with us. The trouble is that I couldn't see how we could bring with us all the necessary stuff for camp and get it all in our Highlander SUV so I suggested bringing our Dodge Ram Van. Once we had switched to the van we had all sorts of room to bring things that previously we hadn't even considered. As it was we completely filled up the back of the van (with the back row of seats stowed) one "layer" high. If we had some clever (and stowable) way to support a second layer without pressing down on the first layer, we could have doubled our cargo.

We got away exactly at 8:00 am making good time and arriving in Bakersfield for refueling and lunch at 1:30 pm. We ate at the Hungry Bear restaurant, a nice classy stake house which used to be a chain outfit but is now locally owned & operated. Good food & reasonably priced.

Carolyn drove all day long, something I wasn't complaining about. As we approached Barstow, we called Ed to find out where they were. They had left yesterday afternoon in order to visit Calico Ghost Town on the way. It turned out we were right on their heels so we decided to meet together for dinner in (you guessed it!) Needles. And the place we decided to eat was (remember we ate lunch at the Hungry Hunter) the Hungry Bear. We're all for equal opportunity, you know.

We convinced the kids to stay in the motel with us rather than trying to get to Flagstaff this evening. I just don't think they would have made it without killing each other. Now we're going to try to send them on their way tomorrow morning early so they can see a couple more tourist sites and still make Taylor by bedtime. Tomorrow will be another big day.