March 30, 2012 — Houston, TX
We left Simi Valley bight and early at 8:00am. Chris’ kids had a doctor’s appointment, so Denise and I figured that we should get an early start and make tracks for Houston. Since people were already starting to as where we were and when we would get places, I decided to turn on the Byonics MicroTrack AIO APRS tracker that Joe had loaned the the Pearl so that people could tell where we were. Tracker lit, we cruised out of Simi Valley torned south onto the 405 and then the 10 — where we more-or-less stayed until we hit Houston.
It took us until about midnight to get from LA to El Paso, TX. It then took us until late afternoon to get from El Paso to Houston — driving in shifts, swapping off about every four hours when we got tired. Denise was a complete trooper through all of this — game for anything. Actually, it was she who suggested that we drive straight through to Houston. I figured it would be a good idea as it would let us know how we might do with staying alert and running shifts on a longer passage.
There isn’t much to say about the trip except that it was long. Curious highlights were the “Tokyo Massage” offered in the back room of a sleazy feeling gas station/diner in Blythe, CA. No I did not get one, though Denise suggested I be a bit more adventurous. I on the other hand was a bit concerned about peeing there on the off chance I caught some dread disease. I noted that Denise wisely DID NOT use the facilities there.
The other curious highlight of the trip was a yard in Harper Texas. Instead of following I-10 through San Antonio to Houston, we decided to take a “short cut” along Highway 290 through Fredricksberg and Austin instead of keeping on the loop to the south on I-10. Harper in an interesting town in an interesting area. The town is SOLIDLY bible belt. There were more churches than gas stations — which may be true of most places other than big cities — but people seemed pretty religious. The other curious feature was a “red neck” yard decorated with the slowly decaying carcasses of airplanes?!? That was worth a second look.
Apart from those two events and a side trip to Fry’s in Phonenix. Needless to say, Denise and I were thrilled to get to my brother Suren’s house that next evening and establish base camp for a week.