Thursday, September 02, 2004

Noooo! Not the Vacation Slides!

Yes. I went on vacation. And yes. You WANT to see photos! So here's a brief, illustrated travelogue. I can't be bothered to come up with an entirely new narrative, so I'm gonna fudge a little and copy from myself. For I am a lazy broad....

First, we took a tour of Hearst Castle. It was quite fabulous, as would be expected. Afterwards, we stayed at The Madonna Inn. Our room was the Fabulous Fifties room, but I think it was a bit more 1850s than 1950s. What WAS 1950s (esque) was the presense of Brian Setzer, who was having a drink in the hotel bar. I tried to take a clandestine, non-flash photo, but it didn't turn out so good. (He's the kind of blonde blur next to the pillar on the right...)

An early start allowed us a stop in Solvang before we cranked up the air conditioner and cruised into the proverbial oasis in the desert. And it really was. A mere 70 bucks a night. A salt water pool. Hardly anyone there. Tastefully decorated. Free breakfast. And freshly baked chocolate chip cookies at 5:30pm! I almost don't want to tell anyone about it lest I spoil it, but I just can't help it. If you ever plan a stay in Palm Springs, check out The Chase Hotel.

The next day we made a brief visit to Lake Havasu, Arizona, home to the London Bridge, where it was about 200 degrees outside. Couldn't do much there but pant and snap a few photos. Our pit stop that night was Kingman, Arizona, on Route 66. We stayed at the Hilltop Motel, Timothy McVeigh's choice when he stayed in Kingman prior to the Oklahoma City bombings. If that wasn't creepy enough, during our stay there, T. had a bad night's sleep, having had a nightmare of some guy chasing her and grabbing her by the leg. And the next morning? She had a hand-shaped bruise on her calf. Swear. To. God.


Needless to say we checked out early, but didn't leave town before visiting some of their groovy museums.


And then, the penultimate destination. As I said before, Veagas cannot be summed up with just one photo. So...Take...Your...Pick.

Our final stop was another Route 66 town: Barstow, California, where we couldn't resist staying at the Route 66 Motel. Despite having to get a new TV put in the room, and the broken shower head, it was a place with it's share of charms.

All-in-all it was a fabulous road trip. Not nearly as unbearably hot as I had been warned it would be. And full of many more (photographed) moments I'm more than willing to share with anyone interested. Like the Bonnie and Clyde pseudo-death car! And the authentic Clyde Barrow death shirt! And the worst mural of Elvis you'd ever hope to see!

The road. She has so many treasures to offer...

3 comments:

Jess Hutch said...

The best "what I did on my summer vacation" ever. Too bad we didn't get a pic of T.'s leg, that was the creepiest thing ever.

Rain said...

Yeah. And we should have taken a picture of my strange finger injury, which did not clear up until we LEFT the motel...the fact that we didn't even *think* to take photos of the weirdness just adds to the overall weirdness of the place!

rachael said...

whoa. i want more tales from the open road.