Road Trip 2

It was July 1974 and a young Brett and Nonie set out for their first road trip together. The trip took 4 weeks and saw Brett drive from Fort Nelson, B.C. to Calgary, Alberta to pick up his soon to be wife in Calgary. From Calgary they traveled to Yellowstone National Park, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Spokane for the World’s Fair, Vancouver, B.C. where Brett dropped Nonie with her family before returning to Fort Nelson.   

 

 

Traveling in a powder blue 1973 Volkswagen Beetle, they camped and stayed in cheap motels for the next four weeks.  Surviving this they were married the following March.

 

 

40 years later, a much older Brett and Nonie following in some of the footsteps they made in 1974 have headed out on another grand road trip. This trip will take them from Penticton to Phoenix, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Bryce Canyon, Salt Lake City, Spokane and finally home to Penticton. They are traveling in a 1998 Toyota Corolla packed with a kettle and toaster.  

 

 

No tenting this time, Motel 6 is their choice of accommodation for much of the trip with the hope of keeping costs down. They could fly cheaper but lately, Brett has come to hate airplanes with a passion he only displayed for his hate of buses when that was the only mode of transportation he could afford. They have flown a 100,000 miles over the past 8 years and Brett has found that a plane ride has become much like those bus rides of his youth. Packed in to seats with no leg room and a seat width that only Twiggy could appreciate, playing “Carry On Baggage Wars” with passengers who bring everything but their kitchen sink onto the plane with them.  Once on the plane, being forced to pay extra fees for all those small items (booze) that could remotely make the trip even approach a minimal level of comfort.  

 

But enough ranting, Day one was a drive out of Canada and into and out of Washington. The interior of Washington State is not exactly blessed with beautiful vistas and scenic view points. It is a stark dry desert landscape when it isn’t irrigated and covered in fruit trees or fields of wheat, corn or hay.

 

 

Radio stations are few and mostly of the Christian sort. Knowing this Brett had loaded an mp3 player with “the best of the 70’s” and enough audio books to get to Phoenix and back to Penticton again and without listening to the same story.  Their first nights  stop was the little city of Hermiston, Oregon where they found a typical Motel 6, with a room with just enough space for a bed and an old fuzzy television providing basic channels but cheap.

Day 2 saw them roar across the breadth of a rainy Oregon on Interstate 84. The countryside was much like central Washington but without the orchards.  For some unexplained reason, Oregon seemed to like Oldies stations that kept them rocking for what should be their longest drive day, about 650 kilometres.  The last few hours took them out of Oregon and into Idaho with not a potato field in sight.

Brett’s perception of Idaho was that it would be covered in potato fields and was looking forward to seeing them. Seeing none, it was like being told there is no Santa Claus. Spending the night in Twin Falls, Idaho they scored at the Motel 6 when the room came equipped with a microwave and fridge.

 

Leaving Idaho on Day 3, we quickly entered Nevada. Not 10 minutes out of Idaho, they came upon the first of many casinos where Debbie Boone had just appeared the night before. Dejavu, as her dad Pat Boone was headlining at a casino in Vegas on their first road trip in 1974.

 

 

 

The Nevada country side was much like that of Central Washington minus, the orchards, the hay, the corn, trees or any wheat fields, just miles and miles of sagebrush, cacti and sand.  It was a short day for them, about 350 kilometres, to the town of Ely, Nevada.

 

 

Ely is a tired little town that began life as a copper, gold mining centre, transitioning into a way station for travelers on the way to Vegas when most of the mines ceased operating.  It once had five casinos, just one now with the rest, abandoned buildings on the main street.   Sadly the Motel 6 was much like the town, old and tired.

 

Day 4 found us still in Nevada by the end of the day. The plan was for them to drive as far as Kingman, Arizona. About 10 miles outside of Boulder City, they realized that they would not have enough gas to make it so they returned to Boulder City.

 

 

 

 

Brett used this as an excuse to drag Nonie to have a quick look at Boulder Dam before returning to Boulder City with the hope of enticing her to go on the dam tour on their return to Vegas in a week. Not sure that his deception worked.  Boulder City is a lovely little town that overlooks the Lake Meade Recreation area. We could certainly live here.

 

Day 5 was a straight shot to Phoenix from Boulder City. Traveling on the Joshua Tree Parkway, they found the Arizona countryside much like the Nevada countryside, dry, desolate but with a much different colour palate. As they arrived to the out skirts of Phoenix, the temperature hit 30 C, a 25 degree increase from Penticton and the raison d’etre for all snow birds.