Driving

My knee was a bit stiff this morning.

After we packed the car with importancy items (like vacuum cleaner, cleaning utensils, bedding, laptops, telephones, important papers and a change of clothes) I sat out in the warm sun with an empty house behind me and waited for our landlords to show up so that we could give them the keys and get on the road. They finally showed up, inspected the house briefly, and we left them there, stopping at Starbucks for a breakfast of coffee and croissant, before getting on the freeway at around 9:15am, heading out across the Richmond Bridge, down 580, through the Altamont Pass and out of the Bay Area.

We drive for about three hours, and have Lunch at Red Robin somewhere off SH5 near Coalinga and Fresno. 

Lisa drives for a bit – my knee is really beginning to hurt. We take turns every few hours.

A Joshua Tree in 1994

Through the Mojave desert, just past Edwards Air Force Base, I had to ask Lisa to stop the car and let me take a picture, on the exact same spot that I took a picture on my first trip to the States in 1994, when we drove to San Francisco, going the opposite way after visiting Lisa’s dad in Las Vegas. It’s hard to describe, but there’s this Joshua tree by the road, and there’s these hills behind it, and I had this bet with myself that I’d be able to recognise the place and take another photo of it. 

The same tree in 2001

We arrived at Barstow in time for dinner, which for me was a chance to have breakfast. Best breakfast I ever had – or was it just hunger?

We arrived in Vegas around 9:30, finally driving into our garage at around 10:00pm. 

Sure enough, there was a UPS box waiting on doorstep. It was the package from Cakewalk software. I wonder how long it had sat there?