Saturday, February 07, 2015

Friday 6th February 2015- En-route to Lake Havasu City-Arizona (part 1)

A free breakfast was proved by the Hampton Hotel this morning and this makes a nice change from sitting in the bedroom with a bowl of cereal or fighting an American breakfast made up of four eggs any style, hash browns, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes and baked beans plus toast. This breakfast will put you in a grave quite quickly.
We had booked this Hotel on Hilton points and much to my surprise this morning there was a bill for US$110.00 pushed under my bedroom door. Damn it they have mucked it up and so I went to complain to only find that the bill was not for me but our neighbour and ours was free.
We left the Hotel and went to find the car wash which was quite efficient and 20 minutes later we left in a clean car with windows you can see out of which does make driving easier. We took a series of roads starting with route 166 from Santa Maria and drove through some really great mountainous country complete with lots of tumble weed which you had to look out for. We also a field filled up with portaloos, two per trailer and there must have been a couple of hundred of them??? . Well soon after we started going through mile after mile of orange trees and every now and again you would see one of these trailers by the side of the road for the workmen. Then there were miles of vines and more porta loos so if you ever get short in this area no real problem.
During part of the drive we entered a dust storm which really does close down the visibility so you have to watch it as last year in New Mexico there were over 150 trucks involved in a sand storm induced crash. From the 166 we moved North avoiding Bakersfield and then joining the 58 towards Barstow. We stopped at a wayside garage for a Subway sandwich which was good and easy to nosh.
The route 58 winds through hills and also wide open spaces where you can see for miles and miles. Although at one very hilly area there were many hundreds of electric wind generators all turning away and we have never seen so many propellers whizzing around at the same time.
We arrived in Barstow and found a supermarket for some milk for tea and then arrived at the Hampton Inn and Suites, yes another free night and checked in and the room is a lot bigger than last nights. We checked email and then trip advisor for restaurant recommendations, one we like the sound of called Polo Loco which does lots of chicken and the menu looked good on the web but the place was like a bad McDonald's. So we ended up in Denny’s and were surprised how good our food was.
There was a large out of town branded name outlets mall behind the restaurant and also behind our hotel and so we needed a walk after a day in the car and Jennifer found some nice shirts in Tommy Hilfiger so although the food started out cheaply the evening cost a little more than planned but the shirts look nice. We found a Dryers ice cream joint and that was our desert.
Now Jennifer seems to be getting better she was happy to start doing some route and Hotel planning for the next few days and after lots of investigation we have booked again somewhere in Phoenix called the Legacy Golf Resort where we have a one bedroom apartment complete with full kitchen so we can go shopping and cook for ourselves.
Tomorrow we do the second part of the trip to Lake Havasu see link http://www.golakehavasu.com/  and will be spending two nights there in a condo again with self catering.