Nipomo to Needles

Up early, had coffee with friends, then hit the road for a 400 mile day.

Coastal range

A terrific drive.  From the coast, up through the coastal range (beautiful country, beautiful road, almost no traffic for a hundred miles) -- across the San Joaquin to Barstow (burger and fries at that famous culinary benchmark, In-n-Out Burger) -- along the southern edge of Mojave desert  and across volcanic cinder fields -- then to Needles near the CA/AZ border.

After a wet winter, all is green and healthy this spring, even the Joshua trees in the Mojave.  And all along the route wildflowers were in bloom.  Blue Lupine, orange California poppy, and fields of some bright yellow flower pretty much everywhere.

Fields of wildflowers

Train crossing the Mojave

There were also lots of bugs in the air, so we had to really scrub the windshield at every rest stop. One thing I noticed late in the day: the color of the biggest splats perfectly matched those bright yellow flowers.  We can take a good guess regarding what the bugs had for their last meal. Front of the car now looks like a Jackson Pollack canvas.

A portion of our front license plate