Day 9: Coming into Los Angeles

August 8, 2005
Flagstaff, AZ to Los Angeles, CA

Loading up Rosco for his final day of travel, the sun rose over the Jiffy Lube...

Such are the sights when you've got a cat to consider. Camping would have been a far more enjoyable way to cross the country (and cheaper!), but I didn't want to torment the cat any more than I had to.

A huge shift in temperature today, as I started from Flagstaff, probably in the mid-60s, drove through the desert in the 100s, and ended up in the high desert of Santa Clarita, CA, where it is in the 90s.

Also another huge landscape shift, as I started in the forested mountains and drove down to the scrubland and cacti of the desert and now am here, which is somewhere in between and has been so landscaped that you can hardly tell what vegetation is natural. Not green grass, I'm thinking.

So I traveled down from Flagstaff (7,000 ft elevation) back to the desert. None of those cool tall cacti that are on the back of license plates there. I was disappointed. But some very different plants. Deserts are surprisingly colorful, helped by the bright blue sky there. I crossed the CA/AZ border and headed north to Needles, a border town which was full of all sorts of wonderful derelict buildings.

And expensive gas ($3.26! Don't worry, dad, it got cheaper. It's about $2.50 here.) Good thing I bought half a tank, though, because even though the signs said next services 18 miles, when you get to that exit, it's closed! Then the sign says next services 54 miles -- if you didn't fill up in Needles, you're screwed! So yeah, Needles must survive on gas taxes alone. Next California town to speak of was Barstow, which had a dead mall and a bunch more strip type businesses.

Off the main road, on a cutover to Palmdale, I stopped in Littlerock, CA. At this crazy store that sold a weird combination of wine, root beer and sodas of all flavors, funnel cake ("real Pennsylvania Dutch"), deep fried oreos, dried fruit, local fruit, bulk stuff, honey.... you name it! Wish I could have stopped longer, but it was still really hot there (the high desert), that I was worried about Rosco back in the car. The store had dried cantalope, dried kiwi, carob trail mix, all sorts of good stuff!

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